Dual Loyalties

Haaretz - Israel News - AIPAC lobbyists summon Israeli diplomats to give testimony

2005-10-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Haaretz - Israel News - AIPAC lobbyists summon Israeli diplomats to give testimony: "Last update - 10:18 25/10/2005

AIPAC lobbyists summon Israeli diplomats to give testimony

By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent

Two lobbyists implicated in the AIPAC affair submitted a request Monday in which they asked Israeli diplomats in Washington to testify in their hearings.

Attorneys Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who together with Pentagon analyist, Larry Franklin, are facing charges of disclosing confidential information to Israel, asked the court to summon the diplomats.

Rosen and Weissman claim the diplomats' testimony is needed to prove their claims that they are innocent of their charges, and were involved solely in routine lobbying work.

The diplomats' identities are not revealed in the request, though it is estimated that one of them is political advisor Naor Gilon, who has already been named in connection with the affair in the past.

Israeli embassy spokesperson, David Segal, said in response that the embassy was still reviewing the request but that in principal it has agreed to cooperate.

Rosen and Weissman were fired from AIPAC last year after the affair became public, but according to media reports the two struck a deal that is said to ensure their silence.

Franklin recently agreed to a plea bargain in which he admitted to handing over confidential information to Rosen, Weissman and Gilon.

His sentencing is due to be given in January."

AIPAC Spys To Subpoena Israeli Diplomats (Mossad)

2005-10-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

Diplomats' testimony sought by lobbyists: "Monday, October 24, 2005 · Last updated 4:13 p.m. PT

Diplomats' testimony sought by lobbyists

By MATTHEW BARAKAT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

McLEAN, Va. -- Two former lobbyists with a pro-Israel group who are charged with disclosing classified U.S. defense information are seeking testimony from Israeli diplomats, according to court documents.

Lawyers for Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, formerly with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, filed motions made public Monday indicating they plan to subpoena the three diplomats, if necessary.

The motion indicates that because all three are out of the country or are planning to leave, it may be difficult to secure their testimony on the ex-lobbyists' behalf.

The diplomats are not identified, but one is known to be Naor Gilon, a political officer at the Israeli embassy who allegedly received classified information in the case.

Spokesman David Siegel said Monday that the embassy had just gotten notice of the defense request and that it would be reviewed. Generally, though, he said the Israeli government has promised to cooperate in the case.

An indictment charges that Rosen and Weissman discussed classified information with Israeli diplomats as far back as 1999. The information allegedly was passed along by a Pentagon analyst who has pleaded guilty in the case.

Rosen and Weissman's lawyers do not specifically say why they want the Israelis to testify. In an unrelated motion, however, they argue that a full airing of the contact between Rosen and Weissman and the Israelis would demonstrate that the pair were engaged in routine lobbying work and their discussions are protected under First Amendment free speech guarantees.

Rosen, of Silver Spring, Md., and Weissman, of Bethesda, Md., were fired by AIPAC earlier this year. Their case has been watched closely in Washington, where AIPAC is an influential organization on foreign policy issues related to Israel.

Former Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin has already pleaded guilty to disclosing classified information to Rosen, Weissman and Gilon. Franklin is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 20."

Journal Gazette | 10/24/2005 | Cheney aide "Scooter” Libby in maelstrom of leaks probe

2005-10-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

Journal Gazette | 10/24/2005 | Cheney aide in maelstrom of leaks probe: "Posted on Mon, Oct. 24, 2005

Cheney aide in maelstrom of leaks probe
By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post
WASHINGTON – Lewis “Scooter” Libby is known for his sarcastic, world-weary and at times dark sense of humor. He once quipped to an aide that he planned to stay as Vice President Cheney’s top adviser until “I get indicted or something.”

That was during President Bush’s first term, brighter days for the administration and, more to the point, before a special prosecutor was investigating Libby’s possible role in disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer, Valerie Plame.

The joke – recounted by the aide, who no longer works in the administration – sounded absurd at the time given Libby’s renown for canniness and prudence. He adheres to a favorite Cheney maxim that the vice president credits to longtime House Speaker Sam Rayburn: “You never get in trouble for something you don’t say.”

Yet Libby could find himself in big trouble for saying too much. And this jibes with a lesser-known side of Libby, the audacious novelist and daredevil skier gripped with concern about global evil and exotic terrorist scenarios; who fervently argues his own viewpoints, particularly on matters of foreign policy; and who can become, friends and associates say, overly passionate in the face of opposing ones.

Libby, 55, has displayed this aspect of himself in a series of heady stations throughout his career – at the State Department, Pentagon and, for the past five years, in the Bush administration. Reporters have seen this side of Libby, too, in his full animated conviction. But almost always on deep background, out of public view.

Now Libby’s cover of anonymity is blown. And for possibly blowing the cover of a CIA operative. People close to Libby point out the incongruity of the whole thing.

“He’s always been excruciatingly careful, which is ironic in his situation,” says World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy secretary of defense and a longtime mentor of Libby’s.

The “situation,” of course, refers to the Plame case. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is said to be focused on whether Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove had a part in divulging Plame’s identity in an attempt to discredit her husband, retired diplomat Joseph Wilson.

Wilson, who undertook a mission to Africa in 2002, was widely critical of the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. Fitzgerald is investigating whether officials in the administration sought to undermine Wilson by outing his wife.

Libby has testified in at least two grand jury appearances about his conversations with reporters on the Plame matter – including two from The Washington Post. He also spoke at least three times with the New York Times’ Judith Miller, who spent 85 days in jail before accepting permission from Libby to tell the grand jury about their conversations. The Times published a nearly 6,000-word account last Sunday about Miller’s dealings with Libby. The story revealed that the misspelled moniker “Valerie Flame” appeared in the same notebook Miller used during an interview with Libby. (In a separate first-person article, Miller wrote she told the grand jury that she believed the name came from another source, whom she could not recall.)

The grand jury’s term expires Friday, and Fitzgerald is expected to reveal his intentions in a matter of days.

Friends describe Libby as engaging and unfailingly polite; it is his habit to stand when a dining partner excuses himself. He is diligent about returning reporters’ calls, albeit on deep background and, in most cases, “telling you absolutely nothing,” says William Kristol, a conservative columnist and longtime acquaintance of Libby’s who served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle. Kristol says Libby “is someone who would seem to spend a lot of effort at not getting caught up in something like this.”

Libby, who declined to be interviewed for this story, is taut and compact, with small eyes and a short mop of graying brown hair. As he has through most of his career, he works long hours and complains that he doesn’t see enough of his wife and two sons. He has looked gaunt and tired of late, according to those who have seen him, and he told at least two friends and associates that he was thinking of leaving the administration after the 2004 election to spend more time writing and skiing.

But those plans would seem to be on hold, at least until the Plame case is settled. He’s been hobbled after breaking a bone in his foot while running up the stairs.

Among vice presidential aides through history, Libby is distinctive for the power and authority he wields, a product largely of Cheney’s outsized role in the Bush administration. Libby holds three titles: chief of staff and national security adviser to Cheney, and assistant to Bush. Unlike few other advisers, he attends top-level White House meetings.

He attends the weekly gathering of Bush’s top economic advisers and – according to Bob Woodward’s book “Plan of Attack,” about the Bush administration’s run-up to the Iraq war – was one of two non-principals who attended National Security Council meetings with the president after Sept. 11, 2001 (the other was Condoleeza Rice’s then-deputy, Stephen Hadley).

In these meetings, Libby rarely speaks. He fixes his eyes on whoever is talking and presses his fingers over his lips. “He sits there in the background with this little half-smile,” says former senator Alan Simpson, the Wyoming Republican and one of Cheney’s closest friends. Cheney vacations in Wyoming, and Libby usually goes along. “He’s a dissector,” Simpson says of Libby. “He is the ultimate, clinical professional.”

Then there is the Libby whom Cheney adviser Mary Matalin calls “the other Scooter” and “the man who you pray you get seated next to at a dinner party.”

It took him 20 years to complete “The Apprentice,” a soaring, erotically charged novel set in rural Japan during a blizzard in 1903. “I went out to Colorado, drank tequila and wrote,” Libby told CNN’s Larry King in 2002 in a rare television interview, the bulk of which he spent discussing the1986 novel, which had just been issued in paperback.

Wolfowitz, Libby’s political science professor at Yale in the 1970s, recalls Libby telling him that “The Apprentice” was originally set in Vermont, but he eventually decided it would work better in Japan. He threw 300 pages away and started again.

The author’s “storytelling skill neatly mixes conspiratorial murmurs with a boy’s emotional turmoil,” the New York Times Book Review said of the book.

A more recent piece of Libby’s writing also drew attention, if not acclaim.

“You went to jail in the summer,” Libby wrote in a letter to Miller, waxing pastoral after he freed her to speak to the grand jury about their conversations. “It is fall now. … Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work – and life.”

The spy-novel dexterity of Libby’s mind and the odd flamboyance of his prose raised questions that he might have been trying to say something more.

“How do I interpret that?” Fitzgerald asked Miller during her grand jury testimony, according to her account in the Times.

Friends say Libby cultivates an enigmatic bearing, one epitomized at the end of Miller’s first-person account. She tells of her last face-to-face encounter with Libby, in August 2003 in Jackson Hole, Wyo., after she had attended a conference in Aspen. “At a rodeo one afternoon, a man in jeans, a cowboy hat and sunglasses approached me,” Miller wrote. “He asked me how the Aspen conference had gone. I had no idea who he was.

“ ‘Judy,’ he said. ‘It’s Scooter Libby.’ ”

Several aspects of Libby are subject to varied interpretations, or at the very least, casual mystery. There are differing accounts of where “Scooter” comes from. He told the New York Times in 2002 that his father, an investment banker now deceased, coined it upon seeing him crawl across his crib. The same year, in an interview with King, Libby spoke of a childhood comparison to New York Yankees Hall-of-Fame shortstop Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto (“I had the range but not the arm,” Libby said).

Libby was born in New Haven, raised in Florida and – like Bush – attended prep school at Phillips Andover and college at Yale. He lives in McLean with his boys and his wife, Harriet Grant, a former lawyer on the Democratic staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Until he broke his foot, Libby played in a weekly touch football game in Chevy Chase, Md.

The gulf war era integrated the themes that have pervaded Libby’s career: his interest in Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, his frustration with the U.S. intelligence apparatus and his willingness to make leaps and support pre-emptive action. He shared the disappointment of his Pentagon bosses – Wolfowitz and Cheney – that the U.S. effort in the Gulf War had not toppled .

In 1992, he was the primary author of a memo for Cheney that would become a seminal document among so-called neo-conservatives. The memo called for pre-emptive U.S. military action – unilaterally, if necessary – to thwart developing countries from obtaining WMDs.

During the Clinton years, Libby practiced law at the D.C. office of Deckert, Price and Rhoads, where he represented Marc Rich, the fugitive billionaire whom Clinton pardoned hours before Clinton left office. Libby was called to testify before a congressional committee investigating Clinton’s pardons during the first months of the Bush administration.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks confirmed Libby’s long-held view that Islamic terrorism was the foremost threat of the post-Cold War era. He had studied the topic for years and had spoke often of the exotic perils to the United States. “I was hounded by Scooter about what we were doing about things like anthrax,” Wolfowitz says, referring to 2002. “He was very concerned about what he saw as a general lack of preparedness.”

Libby greatly admires the work of Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian who posits that warfare is an inevitable part of civilization, evil is a basic condition of humanity, and tyrants must be confronted by the harshest possible means. (In late 2002, a few months before the Iraq invasion, Cheney – also a Hanson devotee – invited the historian to the vice president’s mansion for a small dinner gathering that included Libby.)

Hanson’s stark perspective comports with Libby’s view on Iraq. Libby was among the administration’s fiercest proponents of the invasion, and his office prepared a 48-page document of intelligence on Iraq WMDs for Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations in February 2003. (Powell couldn’t confirm a lot of the data and wound up not using much of it.)

Libby can be impatient. And, associates say, he could become infuriated over discordant views over Iraq, both from within and outside the administration. On Friday the Los Angeles Times – quoting former aides – reported that Libby became so enraged about Wilson’s public statements that he monitored all of the former ambassador’s TV appearances and urged the administration to wage an aggressive campaign against him. (Cheney’s office declined comment on the report.)

Friends and associates say Libby remains unbowed about the U.S. action in Iraq and despite the setbacks of recent months has shown no hint of doubt. In times of travail, Libby recalls the excitement of his job and the grandeur of his mission.

“Cheney and Scooter play chess on several different levels,” Matalin says. “That’s how their minds work. It’s not about what’s right in front of him. They look at things in the sweep of history.

“The Wilson thing was almost mosquito-esque.”"

AIPAC SPY TRIAL: Franklin Mentioned Naor Gilon by Name in Court

2005-10-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Jewish Journal Of Greater Los Angeles: "2005-10-14

A Defiant, Guilty Plea in AIPAC Case
by Ron Kampeas, Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Lawrence Franklin’s plea-bargain pledge to cooperate with the U.S. government in its case against two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) officials was put to the test as soon as it was made.

“It was unclassified and it is unclassified,” Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, insisted in court last week, describing a document that the government maintains is classified. The document is central to one of the conspiracy charges against Steve Rosen, the former foreign policy chief of AIPAC.

Guilty pleas usually are remorseful, sedate affairs. But Franklin appeared defiant and agitated in an Alexandria, Va., courthouse on Oct. 5 when he pleaded guilty as part of a deal that may leave him with a reduced sentence and part of his government pension.

Franklin’s prickliness could prove another setback for the U.S. government in a case that the presiding judge already has suggested could be dismissed because of questions about access to evidence.

Franklin’s performance unsettled prosecutors, who will attempt to prove that Rosen and Keith Weissman, AIPAC’s former Iran analyst, conspired with Franklin to communicate secret information. The case goes to trial Jan. 2.

The argument over the faxed document furnished the most dramatic encounter Wednesday.

“It was a list of murders,” Franklin began to explain to U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis when Thomas Reilly, a youthful, red-headed lawyer from the Justice Department, leapt from his seat, shouting, “Your Honor, that’s classified!”

Ellis agreed to seal that portion of the hearing. JTA has learned that the fax was a list of terrorist incidents believed to have been backed by Iran.

There were other elements of Franklin’s plea that suggest he is not ready to cooperate to the fullest extent. The government says Franklin leaked information to the AIPAC employees because he thought it could advance his career, but Franklin says his motivation was “frustration with policy” on Iran at the Pentagon.

Franklin said he believed Rosen and Weissman were better connected than he and would be able to relay his concerns to officials at the White House’s National Security Council.

He did not explicitly mention in court that Iran was his concern. But JTA has learned that Franklin thought his superiors at the Pentagon were overly distracted by the Iraq war in 2003 — when he established contact with Rosen and Weissman — and weren’t paying enough attention to Iran.

The penal code criminalizes relaying information that “could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” Franklin’s testimony would not be much use to the prosecution if he believed Rosen and Weissman simply were relaying information from the Pentagon to the White House, sources close to the defense of Rosen and Weissman said.

“I was convinced they would relay this information back-channel to friends on the NSC,” he said.

In any case, the section of the penal code that deals with civilians who obtain and relay classified information rarely, if ever, has been used in a prosecution, partly because it runs up against First Amendment protections for journalists and lobbyists, who frequently deal with secrets.

A spokesman for Abbe Lowell, Rosen’s lawyer, said Franklin’s guilty plea “has no impact on our case because a government employee’s actions in dealing with classified information is simply not the same as a private person, whether that person is a reporter or a lobbyist.”

The essence of Franklin’s guilty plea seemed to be only that he knew the recipients were unauthorized to receive the information. Beyond that, he insisted, he had no criminal intent.

Admitting guilt to another charge, relaying information to Naor Gilon, the chief political officer at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Franklin said that he wasn’t giving away anything that the Israeli didn’t already know.

“I knew in my heart that his government had this information,” Franklin said. “He gave me far more information than I gave him.”

Franklin turned prosecutors’ heads when he named Gilon, the first public confirmation that the foreign country hinted at in indictments is Israel. Indictments refer to a “foreign official.”

The suggestion that Franklin was mining Gilon for information, and not the other way around, turns on its head the description of the case when it first was revealed in late August 2004, after the FBI raided AIPAC’s offices. At the time, CBS described Franklin as an “Israeli spy.”

Asked about his client’s outburst, Franklin’s lawyer, Plato Cacheris, said only that it was “gratuitous.”

But Franklin’s claim reinforced an argument put forward by Israel — that Gilon was not soliciting anything untoward in the eight or nine meetings he had with Franklin beginning in 2002.

“We have full confidence in our diplomats, who are dedicated professionals and conduct themselves in accordance with established diplomatic practice,” said David Siegel, an embassy spokesman. “Israel is a close ally of the United States, and we exchange information on a formalized basis on these issues. There would be no reason for any wrongdoing on the part of our diplomats.”

Franklin also pleaded guilty to removing classified documents from the authorized area, which encompasses Maryland, Virginia and Washington, when he brought material to his home in West Virginia.

He sounded another defensive note in explaining the circumstances: He brought the material home on June 30, 2004, he said, to bone up for the sort of tough questions he often faced from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld’s then-deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

Franklin, who has five children and an ill wife, said he is in dire circumstances, parking cars at a horse-race track, waiting tables and tending bar to make ends meet. Keeping part of his government pension for his wife was key to Franklin’s agreement to plead guilty, Cacheris told JTA.

Franklin pleaded guilty to three different charges, one having to do with his alleged dealings with the former AIPAC officials; one having to do with Gilon; and one for taking classified documents home.

The language of the plea agreement suggests that the government will argue for a soft sentence, agreeing to Franklin’s preferred minimum-security facility and allowing for concurrent sentencing. But it conditions its recommendations on Franklin being “reasonably available for debriefing and pre-trial conferences.”

The prosecution asked for sentencing to be postponed until Jan. 20, more than two weeks after the trial against Rosen and Weissman begins, suggesting that government leniency will be proportional to Franklin’s performance.

Franklin is a star witness, but he’s not the entire case. The charges against Rosen and Weissman, apparently also based on wiretapped conversations, allege that the two former AIPAC staffers shared classified information with fellow AIPAC staffers, the media and foreign government officials.

Two other U.S. government officials who allegedly supplied Rosen and Weissman with information have not been charged: David Satterfield, then deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and now the No. 2 man at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and Kenneth Pollack, a Clinton-era National Security Council staffer who is now an analyst at the Brookings Institution.

The problem with the wiretap evidence lies in the government’s refusal to share much of it or even to say exactly how much it has. In a recent filing, the government said that even the quantity of the material should remain classified.

In a Sept. 19 hearing, Ellis suggested to prosecutor Kevin DiGregori that his failure to share the defendants’ wiretapped conversations with the defense team could lead to the case being dismissed.

“I am having a hard time, Mr. DiGregori, getting over the fact that the defendants can’t hear their own statements, and whether that is so fundamental that if it doesn’t happen, this case will have to be dismissed,” Ellis said.

DiGregori said the government might indeed prefer to see the case dismissed rather than turn over the material.

AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman in April but is paying for their defense because of provisions in its bylaws. AIPAC had no comment, nor did lawyers for Weissman."

USATODAY.com - Investigator of CIA leak seen as relentless - Patrick Fitzgerald the Honest Man

2005-10-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

USATODAY.com - Investigator of CIA leak seen as relentless: "Posted 10/10/2005 10:06 PM

Investigator of CIA leak seen as relentless
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — When defense attorney Ron Safer heard that Patrick Fitzgerald would lead an inquiry into the leak of a CIA operative's name, his first thought was that, from the Bush administration's perspective, "they could not have picked a worse person."

"He ... goes where the facts lead him": CIA leak investigator Patrick Fitzgerald.
By Charles Rex Arbogast, AP

Safer, a Chicago lawyer who has watched Fitzgerald since he was named U.S. attorney there in 2001, says the prosecutor "will bring to this the same energy and aggression that he does to every other project he undertakes."

Fitzgerald's official biography says he was named special counsel in December 2003 to investigate "the alleged disclosure of the identity of a purported employee of the Central Intelligence Agency."

That bland description understates the drama and stakes of the investigation. New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to testify. The inquiry led to interviews of President Bush and Vice President Cheney and to grand jury subpoenas for White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis Libby and at least a dozen other officials.

Fitzgerald is to meet with Miller today to discuss newly discovered notes on her conversations with Libby. Rove will testify this week before the grand jury for a fourth time.

Fitzgerald wants to know who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to reporters. Her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, says her cover was blown in retaliation for an op-ed article he wrote in 2003 that accused Bush of "twisting" intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

Perspectives

The inquiry has roiled Washington for months, and tensions are rising because Fitzgerald's grand jury expires Oct. 28. But the man in charge is not a Beltway celebrity. He doesn't hold news conferences in Washington or appear on TV. Friends say he's brilliant and apolitical. Defense lawyers say he can be cold and sometimes surprises them by boldly challenging judges.

Friends and critics agree that his integrity is unassailable and that he is relentless. The list of people he has prosecuted — including al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, former Illinois governor George Ryan and New York mobsters — shows he has no qualms about going after the powerful.

Fitzgerald's politics, motivations and style have prompted debate.

"He has no agenda," says David Kelley, former U.S. attorney in New York and a longtime friend. "He looks at the facts, uncovers the facts and goes where the facts lead him."

Mary Jo White, who was Fitzgerald's boss when she was U.S. attorney in Manhattan, says she knows nothing about his political views — "if he has any, and he may not."

Fitzgerald, who declined interview requests, is registered to vote with no party affiliation.

Defense lawyers have a different perspective. Scott Mendeloff, a Chicago lawyer who specializes in corporate fraud cases and formerly tried and supervised public corruption prosecutions in the U.S. attorney's office, says Fitzgerald demonstrates "a more black-and-white view of the world" that is "reductionist in disregarding nuances beyond what it will take to prevail." Some defense lawyers, he says, believe Fitzgerald is "not prone to consider what some would term humane factors in charging and sentencing decisions."

"To say that he is extremely aggressive is, I think, a gross understatement," Safer says. When he's arguing a motion, Safer says, Fitzgerald is "not disrespectful, but he's a lot less deferential than I bet most judges are accustomed to."

History

Fitzgerald, 44, was born in Brooklyn. His Irish immigrant father, Patrick Sr., worked as a doorman at a building in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Fitzgerald went to Regis High School, a Jesuit preparatory school, then worked on its maintenance crew to pay his way through Amherst College. He majored in math and economics, then went to Harvard Law School.

He worked in a New York law firm before joining the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan in 1988. He stayed for 13 years, convicting Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and indicting bin Laden in a conspiracy that included the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

In Chicago, Fitzgerald has indicted two aides to Mayor Richard Daley on mail-fraud charges after an investigation into bribery and hiring abuses. Ryan is on trial on charges of racketeering conspiracy, mail and tax fraud and false statements during his terms as governor and Illinois secretary of State.

Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who teaches political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago, says Fitzgerald is "almost universally admired ... for telling the truth and prosecuting these cases." He isn't suspected of political motives, Simpson says, because he came to Chicago with no ties to its top politicians and keeps a low profile. "He's doesn't do lunches at the important clubs or make rah-rah speeches," Simpson says.

Even lawyers who question Fitzgerald's tactics say they don't doubt his character. "Pat is driven by iron-tight integrity and a tireless work ethic," Mendeloff says.

Safer, who also once worked in the U.S. attorney's office, faults Fitzgerald for "trying to expand the reach of the mail fraud statutes in ways that are unprecedented" in his government corruption cases. Some errors by politicians, Safer says, "are punishable at the ballot box and not in criminal court." He says Fitzgerald "is impervious to political pressure. ... I've seen no evidence that he has anything but the purest motives."

White says it's unfair to suggest that Fitzgerald is too aggressive. "He's going to pursue matters ... with dedication and thoroughness," she says, "but overzealous? Certainly not."

Miguel Estrada, who worked with Fitzgerald in New York and represents Time reporter Matthew Cooper in the leak inquiry, says Fitzgerald, who is single and a workaholic, is "the picture of what the public would think is an earnest prosecutor. He's a boy scout."

Chuck Rosenberg, a Fitzgerald friend who is U.S. attorney in Houston, was asked recently why Fitzgerald is going after reporters. "I said to them, 'Pat isn't going after journalists, he is after the truth,' " Rosenberg says. "He's exactly the kind of person you'd want doing something like this.""

Lobby Watch: With Indictment of AIPAC Honchos, Trial of Spy-for-Israel Franklin May Be Postponed

2005-10-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Lobby Watch: With Indictment of AIPAC Honchos, Trial of Spy-for-Israel Franklin May Be Postponed: "With Indictment of AIPAC Honchos, Trial of Spy-for-Israel Franklin May Be Postponed
By Andrew I. Killgore
Pentagon Iran analyst Larry Franklin was first indicted by a federal grand jury in May, for passing classified information to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel’s principal lobby in the United States. He was indicted again on June 13, this time charged with disclosing classified information to Israeli Embassy official Naor Gilon, including intelligence about a weapons test related to Iran’s nuclear program. On Aug. 4 the same grand jury, sitting in Alexandria, Virginia indicted Rosen and Weissman for, according to the Aug. 5 New York Times, “conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to journalists and an unnamed foreign power that government officials identified as Israel.”

The indictment contained additional charges against Franklin as well, making it likely his September trial date would be postponed, The Times said.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s account of Franklin’s June 13 indictment emphasized that, since Franklin saw Gilon 14 times, he would hardly have needed Rosen and Weissman to get in touch with him, tending (in JTA’s opinion) to undermine any case against them. Apparently the grand jury did not agree. The JTA also stressed that Franklin’s eagerness to influence U.S. policy toward Iran motivated him to seek out the far-reaching influence of Israel and pro-Israel officials inside the U.S. government.

The Washington Post reported on Franklin’s June indictment as well, but seemingly sought to conceal it by placing it in the local “Metro” section. The Post did reveal, however, that the indictment mentioned another Defense Department official who was present when Franklin disclosed the classified material to Rosen and Weissman. No mention was made, however, of the identity of the other Defense Department official.

Piecing together the disjointed press accounts of the investigation, it now appears that AIPAC was targeted as early as 2001. Indeed, the indictment against Rosen, AIPAC’s former director of foreign policy issues, and Weissman, a senior AIPAC Middle East analyst (AIPAC cut the two men loose in April 2005), cites illegal activities beginning in April 1999. According to the JTA, the FBI investigation stemmed from President George W. Bush’s determination to clamp down on leaks.

The indictments suggest the government has a trove of information on AIPAC.
The Franklin indictments already suggested that the government has a trove of information on the functioning of AIPAC, “an organization that hates exposure,” noted the JTA. In fact, AIPAC keeps such a low profile that it is rarely mentioned in the Washington, DC media.

Two decades ago when the Post mentioned the “Israeli lobby,” it did so using quotes, as if to imply that, while a few people might use the term, it was something outside the mainstream. The quotes have disappeared, but 32 of the 35 still active pro-Israel PACs (political action committees) that, in coordination with AIPAC, shell out campaign contributions, have totally misleading names, with no mention of Israel, Jewish, Zionism or the Middle East (see the November 2004 Washington Report, p. 24).

AIPAC has been called a “night flower” in that it blossoms in darkness and dies in the sunlight. This is an apt designation because, while it is so powerful that it inspires fear among politicians, it is so little known by the public. Even as late as August 2005, The New York Times’ David Johnston, in his story on the Rosen and Weissman indictments, described AIPAC as “a” pro-Israel lobbying group.

Jewish leaders seem particularly worried that the FBI has learned so much about how the AIPAC juggernaut works: “There is a strange sense that when the two [Rosen and Weissman] are indicted, a lot of crap is going to come out, and it could have precocious implications for the institution,” said a Jewish communal leader with strong ties to AIPAC, as quoted in the newspaper Forward.

Steve Rosen was a dominant figure in AIPAC, which used to limit its lobbying to Congress. Under Rosen, however, AIPAC achieved real success in penetrating the White House and the Department of State as well. Perhaps its very success led President Bush to launch the FBI’s careful investigation of AIPAC.

In August 2002, Rosen telephoned a Pentagon employee (could it be the outgoing neocon undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith?), to ask the name of an expert on Iran in the office of the Secretary of Defense. The unnamed employee gave Rosen Franklin’s name. The two were supposed to meet a week later, but ended up meeting in February 2003. Weissman attended that meeting with Rosen, as did an additional unnamed Pentagon official.

A “Real Insider”
En route to that meeting Rosen told Weissman (presumably) that he was excited to meet the “Pentagon” guy because he was a “real insider,” the indictment said. (The indictment clearly indicates that Rosen’s car was “bugged” by the FBI.)

Franklin’s June indictment describes him as motivated not only by hopes that his ideas on Iran would gain acceptance, but by personal ambition. Looking at a position on the National Security Council, he asked Rosen to “put in a good word” for him. Rosen replied, “I’ll do what I can.”

The indictment of Rosen and Weissman is a major blow to Israel-firsters who hope to contain the damage of the espionage allegations to one errant Pentagon staffer. With the Israeli Embassy’s Gilon “reassigned,” the hopes of those who want to cut AIPAC down to size now rest on Rosen and Weissman—and perhaps that unnamed Defense Department official.

The Times’ Johnston noted in his Aug. 4 report on the indictments, “The charges leave delicate questions unanswered. It is unclear what action, if any, the government plans to take against Israel or an embassy official [Gilon] who met with the three Americans.”

AIPAC’s worst nightmare, of course, is having to register as a foreign, rather than an American, lobby. That would shed too much light on AIPAC and Israeli activities alike—something the “night flower” might not survive.

Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs."

granma.cu -Light sentence for a Pentagon expert who spied for Israel

2005-10-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

granma.cu -: "Light sentence for a Pentagon expert who spied for Israel

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma International—

ALTHOUGH he admitted having handed over classified information from the U.S. State Department to Israeli agents, it is already known that Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin, aged 58, who was personal advisor to Donald Rumsfeld, is to be given a sentence way below the 25 prison term established in law, according to an AP cable.

On the other hand, the five Cubans arrested by the FBI for infiltrating Miami terrorist groups in order to neutralize their acts were mercilessly sentenced to life imprisonment and lengthy prison terms for acts of "espionage" that the prosecution was never able to prove. Franklin is to receive a light sentence, AP affirms.

The official admitted to having handed over Pentagon classified information to Naor Gilon, a political official at the Israeli embassy, and to two U.S. citizens employed by the American-Israeli Affairs Public Committee, a pro-Israel lobby group.

The agency notes that he stands to receive a 25-year term but it is thought that he will be given a far shorter one, according to federal direction over the sentencing, and adding that District Judge T.S. Ellis is to pronounce the sentence on January 20.

Franklin, a resident of Kearneysville, Virginia, pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy and one of illegally retaining national defense information.

"ADVISOR" TO DONALD RUMSFELD

It is important to note that Franklin is not just any lowly U.S. government official: for a long period he worked directly with Under Secretary Douglas Feith, at the time described as the Pentagon No. 3, who advised on Middle East and Iranian issues.

Moreover, Franklin also stated to the court that he occasionally met with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfovitz in an advisory capacity.

The AP article by journalist Matthew Barakat states that the two Americans acting as Israeli agents: Steven Rosen of Silver Springs, Maryland, and Keith Weissman, of Bethseda, in the same state, have been charged with conspiracy to receive and disclose information on U.S. Defense. He does not state whether they are under arrest.

According to court documents, Franklin met regularly with Rosen and Weissman from 2002-2004 and discussed classified information with them. From 1999 Rosen and Weissman informed the Israeli government on a series of issues such as: Al Qaeda, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and U.S. policies on Iran.

Franklin also confessed that he was hoping that his "contacts" would be able to influence U.S. policy via their links with the National Security Council.

Various high-ranking Pentagon and U.S. officials testified in the Five’s trial that had not even come close to a single sheet of classified information. Even though their trial has been annulled by the Atlanta Court of Appeals and their detention declared illegal by a panel of UN jurists, the five Cuban victims of Bush justice are still imprisoned in distinct U.S. jails.
"

Jerusalem Post | Franklin's trial won't affect Israel, Israeli diplomatic sources sneered

2005-10-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "Israel: Franklin's trial won't affect us

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nathan Guttman, THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 6, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Israel alleged that it would not be affected by Lawrence Franklin's plea bargain or by the fact that the names of Israeli diplomats were mentioned in court. Israeli diplomatic sources said Thursday that Naor Gilon, the former political officer at the Israeli embassy in Washington, who was in contact with convicted Pentagon analyst Franklin, had no idea that the information he got from Franklin was classified.

"We are not responsible for what is said to us by American officials", said the diplomatic source, "even if an American official did something he was not authorized to do, we had no way of knowing that."

Mark Regev, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in response to the incident that "the Israel embassy staff in Washington conduct themselves in a completely professional manner in accordance with all international conventions, and no one serious has made any allegations to the contrary."

Naor Gilon met between eight and twelve times with Larry Franklin and discussed with him issues regarding Iran's nuclear program and the internal political situation in Iran. Israeli sources described these meetings as routine and common practice for any diplomat.

Franklin himself, in a court hearing Wednesday in which he pleaded guilty to three counts of communicating classified information and holding documents at his home, said he "knew in his heart" that the Israelis already possessed all the information he was giving Gilon. Franklin added that he received more information from the Israeli diplomat than he had given him.

In a short formal reaction to the Franklin plea bargain, David Siegel, spokesman for the Israeli embassy, said, "we have full confidence in our diplomats who are dedicated professionals who conduct themselves in full accordance with established diplomatic practices".

Israel and the US have not reached yet an understanding concerning the method in which Gilon and two other Israeli diplomats from the embassy will be interviewed by investigators probing the case. Israeli suggested that the US relay its questions to the Israelis and will get in return written answers, but there was yet to be an American response to this offer.

While Israel was mentioned only in passing and court documentation showed it was not accused of any wrongdoing, the prosecutors focused on two former officials at AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. The trials of Steve Rosen, former AIPAC director of policy, and Keith Weissman, former Iran analyst at the lobby, were slated to begin on January 3rd.

Abbe Lowell, the attorney representing Rosen in the case, said Wednesday that he was not surprised by the fact that Franklin, who was under great pressure struck a deal with the prosecution. "It has no impact on our case because a government employee's actions in dealing with classified information are simply not the same as a private person, whether that person is a reporter or a lobbyist", said Lowell in a written statement following Franklin's court appearance.

Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Yuval Steinitz said Thursday that Israel had not 'activated' Franklin, and that Israel was not spying in the United States. He stressed that any conviction was in no way an accusation of Israeli involvement in spying."

MercuryNews.com | 10/06/2005 | Iran expert admits giving data to pro-Israel group

2005-10-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

MercuryNews.com | 10/06/2005 | Iran expert admits giving data to pro-Israel group: "Posted on Thu, Oct. 06, 2005

Iran expert admits giving data to pro-Israel group
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post

WASHINGTON - A Defense Department analyst pleaded guilty Wednesday to passing government secrets to two employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group and revealed for the first time that he also gave classified information directly to an Israeli government official in Washington.

Lawrence A. Franklin told a judge in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., that he met at least eight times with Naor Gilon, who was the political officer at the Israeli Embassy before being recalled last summer.

The guilty plea and Franklin's account appeared to cast doubt on longstanding denials by Israeli officials that they engage in any intelligence activities in the United States. The possibility of continued Israeli spying in Washington has been a sensitive subject between the two governments since Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, admitted to spying for Israel in 1987 and was sentenced to life in prison.

David Siegel, a representative of the Israeli Embassy, said Israeli officials have been approached by U.S. investigators and are cooperating. ``We have full confidence in our diplomats, who are dedicated professionals who conduct themselves in full accordance with established diplomatic practices,'' Siegel said.

Court documents filed along with Franklin's plea said he provided classified data -- including information about a Middle Eastern country's activities in Iraq and weapons tests conducted by a foreign country -- to an unidentified ``foreign official.''

The country was not named, but as Franklin entered his plea, he disclosed that some of the material he gave the lobbyists related to Iran. His attorneys stopped him from speaking further, and prosecutors immediately accused Franklin of revealing classified information in court.

Franklin said he passed the information because he was ``frustrated'' with the direction of U.S. policy and thought he could influence it by having the recipients relay the data through ``back channels'' to officials on the National Security Council. He said he never intended to harm the United States, ``not even for a second,'' and that he received far more information from Gilon than he gave. ``I knew in my heart that his government already had the information,'' he said.

Franklin, 58, a specialist on Iran, pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts and a third charge of possessing classified documents. The Defense Department suspended Franklin, who said in court that he now works as a waiter and bartender and at a racetrack. He faces up to 25 years in prison at his sentencing Jan. 20. As part of the plea agreement, Franklin has agreed to cooperate in the larger federal investigation.

Legal experts called the plea a major development in the long-running investigation of whether U.S. secrets were passed to the Israeli government. Franklin said he disclosed classified data to two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Those employees, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, have been charged in what prosecutors said was a broad conspiracy to obtain and illegally pass classified information to foreign officials and news reporters."

Jerusalem Post | Franklin: I gave Israel secret material

2005-10-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "Oct. 6, 2005 0:10 | Updated Oct. 6, 2005 0:26
Franklin: I gave Israel secret material
By NATHAN GUTTMAN
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia

Former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin admitted in court Wednesday he passed classified information to Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon and to two former AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.

Franklin agreed in court to testify against the two AIPAC officials and to prove that he had indeed passed classified information on to them, and had told them clearly this information was classified.

This was the first time that Israel was explicitly mentioned in the courtroom and that Gilon's name was disclosed. When asked by Judge T.S. Ellis whether he communicated classified information to a foreign official, Franklin replied: "I met occasionally with Naor Gilon from the Israeli embassy."

Adding that he had "assumed the Israeli government has already possessed" the information that Franklin gave Gilon, Franklin told the court that his impression was that Gilon gave him more information than he, Franklin, gave the Israeli official.

When asked to characterize his contact with Rosen and Weissman, Franklin said that he talked to them about his "frustration with a particular policy" and said that he had hoped that the two AIPAC officials would convey his views to senior officials in the National Security Council with whom they had good ties. "I asked them to use this information and to get it back channeled to the NSC," he said.

Franklin also pleaded guilty to the third charge of holding classified defense documents at his home in West Virginia without being authorized to do so.

The prosecutors did not say what prison term they will be asking for and the sentencing hearing was scheduled for January 20, 2006.

As part of his plea agreement with the prosecution Franklin will be allowed to serve his term at a minimum security detention camp and will also be allowed to keep part of his federal pension, which is assigned to his wife.

The indictment speaks of information garnered from two US government officials and relayed to three foreign officials, understood to be senior Israeli Embassy staffers.

JTA reported that one of the US government officials is David Satterfield, then deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and now the No. 2 man at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The other is Kenneth Pollack, a Clinton-era National Security Council staffer and now an analyst at the Brookings Institution.

One of the Israelis is Gilon, who until this summer was the chief political officer at the embassy.

The indictment lists charges involving incidents dating back to 1999, and is related to information on Iran and terrorist attacks in Central Asia and Saudi Arabia. For a period in 2004, Franklin worked covertly with the government and relayed allegedly classified information to Rosen and Weissman."

Bloomberg.com: U.S. - Pentagon Analyst Pleads Guilty to Passing U.S. State Secrets

2005-10-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg.com: U.S.:
"Pentagon Analyst Pleads Guilty to Passing U.S. State Secrets
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- A former U.S. Defense Department analyst pleaded guilty to charges he gave classified military documents to unauthorized individuals.

Lawrence A. Franklin, 58, who worked on the Pentagon's Iran desk, pleaded guilty today in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to three counts. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the most serious of the charges. The government recommended his sentencing be delayed to let him complete his cooperation in the case.

``I divulged classified information to individuals unauthorized to receive it,'' Franklin said in court.

Franklin, a former colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, admitted handing over classified information to two former employees of the leading pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington. The men, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, were charged in August with conspiring to disclose information they received form Franklin to foreign government officials.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, fired policy director Rosen and senior Iran analyst Weissman in April.

More than 80 classified documents were found during a search of Franklin's home in Kearneysville, West Virginia, and a search of his Pentagon office a year ago yielded the classified document containing the information he was accused of revealing.

The case is U.S. v. Franklin, 05cr225, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. A trial has been scheduled for Sept. 9.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Cary O'Reilly in Washington at caryoreilly@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 5, 2005 16:20 EDT "

Scooter-gate- by Justin Raimondo

2005-10-03T05:40:00.000-07:00

Scooter-gate- by Justin Raimondo:
Many are wondering why Miller went to jail rather than utilize the waiver Libby's lawyer now says was given her months ago. The reason is because Floyd Abrams, her lawyer, insisted on gaining a key concession from Fitzgerald: that he would limit his questioning to Miller's conversations with Libby.

This narrowing condition was essential if Miller was going to continue to protect her other friends."

The Media Line - AIPAC Spy Trial takes bad turn for the Spy Ring and AIPAC

2005-10-02T04:42:00.000-07:00

The Media Line - News Detail: "INDICTED GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL MIGHT TESTIFY AGAINST AIPAC STAFFERS FOLLOWING PLEA BARGAIN… Prospects for two indicted AIPAC staffers turned more ominous with word that Larry Franklin, the Pentagon analyst at the core of the American Israel lobby’s scandal, has agreed to a plea bargain. The move increases speculation Franklin will testify that there was no doubt that Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen knew well that the information they received from Franklin was classified. According to some legal experts, it also shifts the case more in the direction of AIPAC itself. Since the scandal broke, the organization has been saying that it is not a target of the investigation. It also reversed course when it fired Weissman and Rosen after averring that it would stand by the pair throughout the course of the proceedings. If there is a bright spot for the defendants and the organization at this time, it comes from reports that the trial judge is upset with the prosecutors’ refusal to make surveillance tapes available to the defense. JTA news agency reports that Judge T.S. Ellis has hinted that continued refusal to do so could lead to a dismissal of charges."

JTA NEWS: BEHIND THE HEADLINES Judge in AIPAC case focuses on government refusal to share tapes

2005-09-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

JTA NEWS "BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Judge in AIPAC case focuses on government refusal to share tapes
By Ron Kampeas and Matthew E. Berger
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (JTA) — The judge hearing a case against two former staffers of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has raised tough questions about the government’s reluctance to share information with the defendants, suggesting it could lead to a dismissal.
The contours of the trial against Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former foreign policy director, and Keith Weissman, a former Iran analyst, on charges of trading in classified information are beginning to become clear in preliminary hearings. The trial date is set for Jan. 2.

Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst who is charged as a co-conspirator, is set to plead guilty on Wednesday, which would require him to testify against Rosen and Weissman.

In a routine scheduling session Sept. 19, Judge T.S. Ellis was taken aback by prosecutor Kevin DiGregori’s plans to withhold from the defense a portion of tapes and transcripts of conversations among Rosen, Weissman and others, in which the defendants allegedly incriminate themselves.

“I am having a hard time, Mr. DiGregori, getting over the fact that the defendants can’t hear their own statements, and whether that is so fundamental that if it doesn’t happen, this case will have to be dismissed,” Ellis said. “Have you ever heard of a case where a defendant couldn’t have his own statements? I have been on the bench 18 years, with another 20 years before that, and it has never happened. I don’t know of any reported case.”

Prosecutors said the wiretap material was “owned” by various government intelligence agencies, and it was up to those agencies to share the material.

Thomas Reilly, a Justice Department lawyer, invoked the notorious secrecy of the three-judge panel that orders wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, and suggested that the sensitivity lay not in what Rosen and Weissman had said but in whom they were speaking with.

“It involves FISA-derived electronic surveillance, your honor, of the defendants and third parties,” Reilly said.

The indictment speaks of information garnered from two U.S. government officials and relayed to three foreign officials, understood to be senior Israeli Embassy staffers.

JTA has learned that one of the U.S. government officials is David Satterfield, then deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and now the No. 2 man at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The other is Kenneth Pollack, a Clinton-era National Security Council staffer and now an analyst at the Brookings Institution.

One of the Israelis is Naor Gilon, who until this summer was the chief political officer at the embassy.

None of those men has been charged. That raises questions about the government’s case against Rosen and Weissman, who — according to the government scenario — would have been middlemen in the whole affair.

Rosen and Weissman also allegedly relayed some of the information in question to journalists at the Washington Post and The Nation. The government may be sensitive about revealing that it wiretapped journalists and Israeli diplomats, some close to the case say.

Judge Ellis was skeptical of the government’s position, but gave the government until Thursday to explain its case.

“I can understand how that conceivably might be national security information, but I find it hard to understand how the defendants shouldn’t have access to it,” he said, adding that he might review the material himself.

In a response filed Thursday, the government cited precedents to show that prosecutors need not reveal wiretapped information that is not exculpatory or is irrelevant to the defense. They likened keeping the information secret to laws that protect informants.

In the Sept. 19 hearing, Ellis said it was up to him to determine relevancy. The defendants have until next Friday to respond.

Rosen’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had raised the matter because he said a lack of access to material would prevent him from meeting court deadlines to file motions to dismiss. Ellis appeared sympathetic and postponed some of the hearings, though he was adamant that the trial would start Jan. 2.

Lowell said in court that he had spoken to lawyers for the foreign officials — apparently the Israelis — and had little hope of calling them for the defense.

“My initial inclination, from what I have spoken to counsel” for the foreign officials, “is that they are not going to make this very easy,” he said.

More broadly, Lowell suggested that the government’s proposed release of nine hours of recorded material was sparse, because his client was under surveillance for four years. He suggested that the government had much more material than it claimed.

“I am happy to hear, but would be surprised to find out, that there are only nine hours of surveillance tape,” he said. “On the issue of motions, it will be necessary to hear everything my client said.”

DiGregori suggested that the material the government wished to suppress was a small portion of the whole.

“Except for two outstanding issues on some of the FISA material,” he would release everything, DiGregori said.

In the later written submission to the court, DiGregori said that even the quantity of the government’s recordings should remain classified.

If Ellis allows the government to withhold some of the wiretap recordings, the defendants could consider it grounds for appeal.

AIPAC is committed to paying for the legal defense of Rosen and Weissman because of an indemnification clause in employee contracts, JTA has learned. AIPAC employees sign an agreement that protects them from legal harm until all appeals are exhausted, according to a source close to the defense of Rosen and Weissman who has firsthand knowledge of the clause.

JTA previously had learned that AIPAC’s bill for the pair’s defense had topped $1 million, even though AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman in April, allegedly because of information arising out of the FBI investigation. AIPAC declined to comment, as did Lowell.

Franklin, the Pentagon analyst who has been charged along with Rosen and Weissman, plans to plead guilty on Wednesday, a clerk for the court told JTA. The clerk, Edward Adams, said he did not know what charge Franklin would plead to, or if the plea is part of a larger deal.

Plato Cacheris, Franklin’s lawyer, would not say what his client would plead to, but confirmed to JTA that negotiations with the government were under way and that his client would be required to testify if he pleads.

Cacheris also confirmed that part of the negotiations involved retaining Franklin’s pension. Franklin has five children and an ill wife.

In the past, Cacheris had suggested that Franklin would plead guilty to charges that he moved classified documents out of a designated area to his home in West Virginia. That is the least of the charges against him, and doesn’t involve Rosen or Weissman.

Rosen and Weissman were charged with “conspiracy to communicate national defense information to people not entitled to receive it,” which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Rosen also is charged with actual communication of national defense information, which also is punishable by 10 years in prison.

The charges come under the Espionage Act, but do not rise to the level of espionage.

The indictment lists charges involving incidents dating back to 1999, and is related to information on Iran and terrorist attacks in Central Asia and Saudi Arabia. For a period in 2004, Franklin worked covertly with the government and relayed allegedly classified information to Rosen and Weissman.

One charge against the pair accuses them of relaying the information in turn to Gilon, the Israeli Embassy staffer."

Ariga: Running Scared AIPAC Drops Israeli Anthem Friday, September 30, 2005

2005-09-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

Ariga: An election, an anniversary and an investigation, Friday, September 30, 2005: "And on the eve of the new Jewish year, which begins on Monday evening, Israeli officials, particularly at the mbassy in Washington are bracing for the reading of the plea bargain deal cut with Larry Franklin, the Pentagon analyst indicted for handing secrets (reportedly about Iranian spies in Kurdish Iraq looking for Israeli agents there) to two top officials from AIPAC, the organized 'Jewish lobby' in Washington. The two AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman have also been indicted in the case – and at least three Israeli officials from the embassy, who are all back in Israel, are named in the indictments, though not as defendants. The case, say Israeli officials somewhat blithely, will be bad for AIPAC, but not so bad for Israel. But already this year, for the first time in AIPAC history, the Israeli anthem was not played after the American anthem at the opening session of its annual general assembly of activists from all over the country."

National News

2005-09-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

National News: "AIPAC Restructuring

Ron Kampeas
Special to the Jewish Times

SEPTEMBER 30, 2005
Washington

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is undergoing major restructuring in the wake of recent growth, JTA has learned.

The premier pro-Israel lobby is simultaneously expanding its lobbying efforts in Washington, the number of issues it addresses and its outreach to Jewish communities across the United States, according to three sources familiar with the expansion.

The changes have been in the works since 2003, all the sources said, and predate an FBI raid last year that roiled the organization and led to charges against two former AIPAC staffers accused of passing classified information.

Much of AIPAC's growth has to do with renewed activist interest in Israel since the breakdown of the peace process in 2000 and the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, according to insiders. The momentum accelerated with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

AIPAC has expanded its top management team, hired a number of new regional directors and added lobbyists. No one would give specific numbers.

The expansion is of a piece with the organization's recent membership drives through synagogues and on college campuses. AIPAC officials say the average regional event has ballooned from 200-300 people a few years ago to about 1,000 nowadays.

AIPAC also has added a number of issues to its lobbying agenda, including homeland security, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Its venture into homeland security is a first dip into domestic issues for the organization, which has made foreign policy its strength. Other groups, including the United Jewish Communities federation umbrella organization, currently lobby on homeland security.

"Given AIPAC's tremendous growth, both in terms of its membership and overall agenda, we continue to evolve and explore ways we can be even more effective and achieve greater synergy across all areas of the organization," spokesman Josh Block said.

AIPAC's membership has almost doubled since 2000, from 55,000 to 100,000, and its annual operating budget has more than doubled, from $17 million to more than $40 million.

It also has established a capital fund and a building fund. By the end of 2007 AIPAC will be housed in its own building for the first time, a few blocks from the Capitol.

One of the hallmarks of the restructuring is that the congressional and executive branch lobbying departments, run separately for years, will be rolled into one outfit. It will be jointly headed by Brad Gordon, who currently runs congressional lobbying, and Marvin Feuer, a senior defense analyst.

Much of the criticism of AIPAC in the wake of the FBI case is that one of the targeted former staffers -- Steve Rosen, who was director of foreign policy issues -- relied too heavily on the executive branch and allegedly became embroiled in its secrets. Feuer has assumed Rosen's responsibilities.

All three sources said the plan to combine the two lobbying departments predated the FBI raid. Two of the sources said the circumstances of Rosen's departure helped shape how the new shop would operate, though they would not elaborate.

AIPAC fired Rosen in April in the wake of the FBI investigation, which AIPAC said uncovered evidence of inappropriate behavior.

Earlier this summer, AIPAC confirmed that it had hired former Justice Department lawyers working for an outside legal firm, Howrey LLP, to review its lobbying practices.

However, the FBI raid and the legal charges against Rosen and Keith Weissman, an Iran analyst, have resulted in increased contributions for the organization, AIPAC lay leaders have said.

This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency."

AIPAC and Espionage: Guilty as Hell- by Justin Raimondo

2005-09-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

AIPAC and Espionage: Guilty as Hell- by Justin Raimondo: "AIPAC and Espionage:
Guilty as Hell
Pentagon analyst plea bargains, threatens to expose Israel's Washington cabal
by Justin Raimondo
The plea bargain struck by former Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin – charged with five counts of handing over classified information to officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group, who passed it on to Israeli diplomatic personnel – has delivered a body blow to the defense of the two remaining accused spies. Steve Rosen, who for 20 years was the chief lobbyist over at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's top foreign policy analyst, befriended Franklin and pumped him for top-secret information – including sensitive data about al-Qaeda, the Khobar Towers terrorist attack, Iran's weapons program, and attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Now they face the likely prospect of Franklin testifying to their treason in court.

For months, AIPAC's defenders have been bruiting it about that this prosecution is persecution, that the whole thing is a "setup." What Rosen, Weissman, and Franklin are accused of is routine, said their defenders – "everybody does it" – and the decision to go after AIPAC is thinly disguised anti-Semitism, the 21st century American equivalent of Kristallnacht. They have impugned the FBI as some sort of neo-Nazi outfit, exonerated the accused before even hearing the charges, and engaged in a smear campaign against anyone who wonders why it is that a purportedly American organization is engaged in an intelligence-gathering operation involving the transfer of top-secret information to a foreign government.

Now the man they portrayed as being a persecuted victim is admitting that, yes, he spied for Israel, and, furthermore, the clear implication of this apparent plea bargain is that he is prepared to expose the spy ring that Israel was – and perhaps still is – running inside AIPAC, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington.

This case has received relatively little publicity in relation to its importance. It isn't just the fact that, for the first time in recent memory, Israel's powerful lobby has been humbled. What is going on here is the exposure of Israel's underground army in the U.S. – covert legions of propagandists and outright spies, whose job it is to not only make the case for Israel but to bend American policy to suit Israel's needs (and, in the process, penetrate closely-held U.S. secrets).

Particularly fascinating is the apparent longevity of the ongoing investigation: the implication of the latest indictment [.pdf] is that FBI counterintelligence officials have been looking into Israel's covert activities in the U.S. since at least 1999, when Rosen apparently was observed telling a "foreign official" that he (Rosen) had "picked up an extremely sensitive piece of intelligence" identified as "codeword protected." At this meeting, the indictment avers, Rosen handed over this information – regarding "terrorist activities in Central Asia" – to the foreign official.

The AIPAC spy nest has been burrowing deeply into Washington's official secrets without regard for propriety or party. The indictment describes the duo's extensive contacts with a wide range of U.S. government officials, Israeli diplomats, and other individuals, none of them identified by name. However, two have been subsequently outed in the media by sources close to the investigation: they are David Satterfield, a deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs and now the second most senior U.S. government representative in occupied Iraq, and Kenneth Pollack, who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. Said Pollack: "I believe I am USGO-1," identified in the second indictment as having met with Rosen and Weissman on Dec. 12, 2000. Pollack handed over classified information about "strategy options" against an unidentified "Middle Eastern country."

Pollack, a key Democratic Party foreign policy adviser, authored an influential book, The Threatening Storm, which convinced many liberals to jump on board the pro-war bandwagon. "If we observe how we were lied into war with Iraq, and by whom," I wrote in May, "the whole affair looks more like an Israeli covert operation by the day." The AIPAC spy scandal is confirming this in spades – and much else, too. It is also showing that the Israelis were not about to stop with Iraq, but were – and are – lobbying furiously for more military action in the Middle East, this time aiming for regime change in Tehran. The indictments issued against Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman describe a systematic attempt by Israel's fifth column in Washington to garner top-secret U.S. intelligence about Iran, its weapons program, and U.S. deliberations about what action to take.

The chief beneficiaries of the conquest of Iraq, and subsequent threats against both Iran and Syria, have been, in descending order, Israel, Iran, and Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda has used the invasion as a recruiting tool and training ground for its global jihad against the United States. Iran has extended its influence deep into southern Iraq and has penetrated the central government in Baghdad. In the long run, however, Israel benefits the most, as a major Middle Eastern Arab country fragments into at least three pieces and the U.S. military is ineluctably drawn into neighboring countries.

While the U.S. imposes an occupation eerily reminiscent of Israel's longstanding occupation of Palestinian lands and prepares to deal with Israel's enemies in the region, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon makes major incursions into the West Bank, even while supposedly "withdrawing" from Gaza. In the meantime, the political and military bonds between the U.S. and Israel are strengthened, as the two allies present an indissoluble united front against the entire Muslim world.

Except the alliance is far from indissoluble, as the AIPAC spy scandal reveals. The U.S.-Israeli relationship, often described as "special," is rather more ambiguous than is generally recognized, both by Israel's staunchest friends and its most implacable enemies. This has come out in Israel's funneling American military technology to China, and the threat of American sanctions, but was also made manifest earlier by indications that Israel was conducting extensive spying operations in the U.S. prior to 9/11 – suspicions that are considerably strengthened by the AIPAC spy brouhaha.

Israel's secret war against America has so far been conducted in the dark, but the Rosen-Weissman trial will expose these night creatures to the light of day. Blinking and cursing, they'll be confronted with their treason, and, even as they whine that "everybody does it," the story of how and why a cabal of foreign agents came to exert so much influence on the shape of U.S. foreign policy will be told.

In the course of bending American policy to the Israelis' will, they had to compromise the national security of the United States – and that's what tripped them up, in the end.

The blogger Billmon succinctly summed up how this case throws a new light on the real contours of U.S.-Israeli relations and puts an entirely different face on the "special relationship":

"While the marriage may look like perfect conjugal bliss from the Washington end, the Jerusalem end has a different point of view – and always will. The Israelis understand, even if their American patrons do not, that they live in another country, one with its own national interests, its own strategic ambitions and its own enemies, none of which necessarily overlap with America's.

"They don't even make much of an attempt to hide it, as this writer for David Horowitz's Frontpage (to Israel what the Daily Worker once was to the Soviet Union) makes clear: 'A more independent Israel is determined to make its own mark on the world – questioning U.S. authority more frequently in order to establish its own autonomous relations with other countries.'

"A good idea. It's just a shame our own political lap dogs and their media water carriers won't do likewise."

The Soviet analogy is very apt, The success of both the KGB and the Mossad in Washington, albeit at different times, was in both cases enabled by an alliance born of political necessity as well as military utility. Our World War II alliance with the Soviets made the KGB's job a lot easier, allowing them to set up a network based on ideological loyalty that later reaped intelligence dividends. In addition, there was a lot of domestic political pressure to give the Russians what they wanted, as the Communists took the lead in dragging us into war in order to save Stalin's "workers' paradise" from Hitler's legions. America's longstanding relationship with Israel similarly gave the Israelis the basic structure of a very efficient and increasingly bold spying apparatus in the U.S., the tentacles of which reached into the upper echelons of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon. AIPAC functions simultaneously as a lobbying group – one whose will is rarely defied by legislators – and as a key link in the chain of espionage that binds us to the Israelis in a very "special relationship."

Israel's legendary Mossad intelligence service, with its reputation for both efficiency and ruthlessness, reportedly shadowed the 9/11 hijackers on American soil as they prepared to launch the biggest terrorist attack in our history. Multiple sources reported a large-scale surveillance operation directed at U.S. government buildings, including offices of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, U.S. courthouses, and some military bases and research facilities. The AIPAC spy cell in Washington was the brain, and the "Israeli art students" – whose movements shadowed the hijackers in Florida and elsewhere – were the arms and feet of a subterranean creature whose dimensions we are only just beginning to discover.

– Justin Raimondo"

Pentagon analyst expected to plead guilty - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

2005-09-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

Pentagon analyst expected to plead guilty�-�Nation/Politics�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper: "Pentagon analyst expected to plead guilty
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 30, 2005

A veteran Pentagon analyst accused of using his Defense Department position to illegally disclose classified information to officials at an influential pro-Israeli lobbying group is expected to plead guilty in the case, although sources said yesterday that no final deal had been reached.
Lawrence A. Franklin was named in a six-count grand jury indictment handed up in federal court in Virginia in May, accusing him of disclosing the information to two officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He is tentatively scheduled to enter a plea Wednesday.
A statement by the U.S. District Court in Alexandria said it was not clear to what charges Mr. Franklin might admit, and a court official noted that any plea agreement in the case could collapse overnight.
The 20-page indictment said Mr. Franklin, 58, of Kearneysville, W.Va., arranged for and set the agendas for meetings with those to whom he relayed the data and acted on requests for more information. The government said the disclosed information could have been used "to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation."
The indictment also said Mr. Franklin met with a foreign government agent near the Israeli Embassy in Washington in January 2003 and discussed "a Middle Eastern country's nuclear program." The indictment did not identify the agent, although he is thought to be Naor Gilon, political adviser at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
Last month, Mr. Franklin, a specialist on Iran, pleaded not guilty to all counts during a hearing before U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria.
The two AIPAC officials also charged in the case are Steven J. Rosen, 63, of Silver Spring, former director of foreign policy issues for the organization, and Keith Weissman, 53, of Bethesda, former senior Iran analyst at AIPAC.
The indictment outlines an extensive FBI undercover investigation dating to 1999, when conversations between Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman with officials from foreign countries and others were monitored. It said the AIPAC officials illegally disclosed information from classified reports, including data on terrorist activities in Central Asia, the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, U.S. strategy options in the Middle East and al Qaeda terrorists.
Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman have vigorously denied the accusations and pleaded not guilty in the case. The three were scheduled for trial in January.
AIPAC and the Israeli Embassy have denied any wrongdoing. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman have left the organization."

With Friends Like These By Erik Sass

2005-09-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

: "With Friends Like These By Erik Sass

Posted September 2005
An Iranian group has killed American civilians, allied itself with Saddam Hussein, and holds a spot on the State Department’s terrorist watch list. So why might it become America’s newest friend in the Middle East? Hint: Tehran.

In August 2002, intelligence reports revealed secret nuclear facilities in the Iranian cities of Natanz and Arak. The revelation left officials in Tehran speechless, in large part because the evidence was not gathered by the United States or any of its allies. Rather, the courier of such sensitive intelligence was the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a decades-old Iranian dissident group. In most cases, dissident groups who could work so effectively within rogue states would be natural friends with Washington. But in the case of the MEK, it’s more complicated: The U.S. State Department lists the MEK as a terrorist organization.

There is no doubt the group has a darkly violent past. The MEK opposed Iran’s Shah in the 1970s, and during its militant opposition, killed U.S. military and civilian personnel in Iran, and backed the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran. Though the MEK initially was supportive of the 1979 Islamic revolution, it eventually opposed the clerical regime that came to power. In two 1981 attacks, the MEK killed the Iranian president, premier, chief justice, and 70 other Iranian officials. And with the support of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, the MEK launched attacks on Iran beginning in 1987, during the brutal endgame of the Iran-Iraq war, later claiming that they killed 40,000 of their countrymen during these campaigns.

Decades later, Iran is still a rogue state. But some say that it’s time to rethink the MEK. “I say the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” says Raymond Tanter, a former Middle East analyst on Reagan’s National Security Council, now Washington’s leading MEK booster. “They have eyes and ears on the ground. And they can provide us with human intelligence that we just don’t have.”

That presence on the ground, and its clear opposition to Iran, is winning the MEK support in Washington. President Bush recently called the MEK a “dissident group,” a clear hat tip, and several U.S. legislators want the MEK removed from the terrorist list, which would allow it to raise money in the United States. MEK fundraisers have challenged the group’s terrorist status in court, so far without success. The Iran Freedom Support Act, a House bill clearly intended to help the group, was introduced in April by longtime MEK backer Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. It remains tied up in committee. MEK supporters on Capitol Hill are likely waiting on the State Department’s official revocation (or reaffirmation) of the group’s terrorist status, expected to take place in early October.

Retro Radicals
With a curious ideology somehow melding Marxism and Shiite Islamism, the MEK is a relic of a different time—a group of aging student activists who cling to their 1970’s radicalism. Comparable American and European groups like the Weather Underground and the Red Brigades faded away long ago, but the MEK has lived on in isolation. Despite its claims to be “democratic,” the group is actually a strict authoritarian commune, with frequent reports of beatings and torture of members who try to leave. Critics of the MEK don’t hesitate to call it a cult, and even some supporters concede that the group is rather unusual. The group’s leadership is a “gynocracy,” with women making up 30 percent of the fighting force and holding a disproportionately large share of military and political leadership positions. All members are subordinate to the “President-Elect,” Maryam Rajavi and her husband Massoud. Maryam’s face appears on t-shirts, signs, and pamphlets, and her slogans are repeated by followers with an eerie mantra-like insistence.

But the group’s bizarre nature isn’t the problem for gaining American backing. Rather, it’s a more important question: Has the MEK really given up terrorism? The group has foresworn violence, outwardly at least, as it desperately tries to scrub off the terrorist label. The centerpiece of the MEK’s new program is a peaceful “Third Way” to regime change, calling for a highly implausible referendum on a new Iranian government. Now that the group is angling for U.S. patronage, it has dropped the anti-American and overtly Marxist rhetoric from the group’s early days, and instead talks of free markets, liberty, freedom, and democracy. “The law says if they haven't engaged in terrorist activity for two years, and they don't have the means or intent to perform terrorist acts, they get off the list,” argues Tanter, “I say, follow the law.”

For now, the Bush administration seems to be trying to have it both ways. At a 2004 House International Relations subcommittee hearing, John Bolton, now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that while the MEK is a terrorist organization, he didn’t think that it “prohibited us from getting information from them.”

During the MEK’s long cooperation with Saddam Hussein, it assisted in the brutal suppression of the Kurds and Shiites, earning the enmity of both groups. So it came as no surprise when Iraq's new Shiite-dominated interim Governing Council issued a decree in 2003 (never enforced, by dint of U.S. inaction) saying that the MEK would be expelled from the country. The group got a temporary reprieve from the Iraqis, but is under enormous pressure from official and unofficial groups, including the Shiite Badr Brigade, to leave Iraq as soon as possible, a large-scale relocation that will require American support and diplomatic muscle.

Meanwhile, the MEK’s transformation into a tool of U.S. intelligence is fast becoming a fait accompli. U.S. forces have disarmed its military wing in Iraq and news reports suggest demoralized fighters are deserting their base at Camp Ashraf. According to Massoud Khodabandeh, a former MEK security officer who left the group in 1996 and recently testified against its leadership on trial on charges of terrorism in France, “more than 300 members have fled…[and] 1,000 disaffected members approached the U.S. army and requested to be separated from the organization.” Both the mujahedin who have sought protection in U.S. custody and the hardline supporters still with the group clearly need something to do—and the Pentagon is holding all the cards.

“I'm not saying I always approve of the tactics that the group used in the past,” cautioned Shirin Nariman, a longtime MEK member and fundraiser who joined the group in the late 1970’s. “The whole world has changed, so of course it requires different strategies. And they don't require an army.” (Though a member of the MEK, Nariman often refers to the group in the third person). Former member Khodabandeh is blunter: “They have this dilemma. On one hand they have [used] violence for 30 years. On the other hand they have to get some support from someone (in America or other places) to survive after Saddam.” He dismissed the “peaceful” rhetoric as tactical posturing by the group, masking its terrorist character.

Friends in Need

When the Iran-Iraq war ended, an MEK commander asked about the future of the group said, “We have always adjusted tactics in our fighting. The form of fighting is secondary.” Predictably, the group is retooling itself again, and according to some sources, moving its operations to a new frontier.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has granted permission for the MEK to operate from the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, which borders Iran. This decison suggests to some that there is a possibility that the CIA may be deploying the MEK in western Afghanistan as well, to the provinces of Herat and Farah, thus doubling the length of Iranian border open to infiltration. As with Pakistan, the MEK is familiar with that terrain, having infiltrated western Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

Asked what the MEK might be doing, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Rick Francona, a former Air Force intelligence specialist with experience in the Middle East, says: “The primary focus will be the collection of intelligence, possibly even setting up infiltration and exfiltration routes and identifying agents in place inside Iran.” Francona explains that MEK teams could work in conjunction with any of these activities: “While U.S. technical intelligence sensors—electronic and visual—are useful, it is always better to have a human source that can penetrate the facility, tell us what is going on inside the buildings, who is doing what, intentions, progress, and so on. A good spy is hard to beat.”

But is MEK intelligence any good? Current and former U.S. officials have told Newsweek magazine that they knew of the major revelations about Iran’s nuclear program before the MEK made them public, and the group has a record of exaggerating intelligence or sometimes simply making things up. U.S. officials have learned to take MEK claims with very large grains of salt. David Kay, the former intelligence official who spent years investigating Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, expressed a balanced view: “They're often wrong, but occasionally they give you something.”

More alarming, however, is Khodabandeh’s warning that the MEK has been heavily infiltrated by Iranian intelligence, and is of limited utility. However, he concedes, “Having said that, I think it is the job of CIA officers to use the available forces on the ground.” Khodabandeh also notes that the CIA might be able to “clean” the organization of Iranian infiltrators, restoring some of its usefulness as a covert ops force. An alternative method, suggests Francona, would involve culling small operating groups of trustworthy individuals from the MEK’s ranks, employing them in isolated “cells” to limit the damage if any one of them is discovered. “There is precedent for this,” he says, although he refuses to elaborate.

Meanwhile, the latest U.S. intelligence assessment released recently now projects that Iran is a decade away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb. But MEK supporters say the assessment is both naïve and out of date, because of the subsequent election of ultra-conservative hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president in June. Tanter warns, “What the elections did was consolidate power under supreme leader Khamenei in such a fashion that there’s now very little need to conciliate the moderates in the Iranian government. I anticipate that Iran will take a tougher line on negotiations on Europe.” Iran’s recent rejection of a seemingly generous European “grand bargain” as “insulting” would appear to confirm Tanter’s prediction.

Despite the political changes on the ground, it is still hard to imagine the MEK playing a large role in any future regime change in Iran. With no more than 3,800 aging members, the group could hardly destabilize the Iranian government itself, but it may prove useful as an intelligence asset. With its allies currently frustrating U.S. efforts to refer the Iran nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council, Washington may be in need of friends and any help may be appreciated. The question is whether the MEK are the kind of friends you can count on.

Erik Sass is a freelance journalist"

Foreign Policy: With Friends Like These Page 2

2005-09-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

Foreign Policy: With Friends Like These: "With Friends Like These

By Erik Sass Page 2 of 2

During the MEK’s long cooperation with Saddam Hussein, it assisted in the brutal suppression of the Kurds and Shiites, earning the enmity of both groups. So it came as no surprise when Iraq's new Shiite-dominated interim Governing Council issued a decree in 2003 (never enforced, by dint of U.S. inaction) saying that the MEK would be expelled from the country. The group got a temporary reprieve from the Iraqis, but is under enormous pressure from official and unofficial groups, including the Shiite Badr Brigade, to leave Iraq as soon as possible, a large-scale relocation that will require American support and diplomatic muscle.

Meanwhile, the MEK’s transformation into a tool of U.S. intelligence is fast becoming a fait accompli. U.S. forces have disarmed its military wing in Iraq and news reports suggest demoralized fighters are deserting their base at Camp Ashraf. According to Massoud Khodabandeh, a former MEK security officer who left the group in 1996 and recently testified against its leadership on trial on charges of terrorism in France, “more than 300 members have fled…[and] 1,000 disaffected members approached the U.S. army and requested to be separated from the organization.” Both the mujahedin who have sought protection in U.S. custody and the hardline supporters still with the group clearly need something to do—and the Pentagon is holding all the cards.

“I'm not saying I always approve of the tactics that the group used in the past,” cautioned Shirin Nariman, a longtime MEK member and fundraiser who joined the group in the late 1970’s. “The whole world has changed, so of course it requires different strategies. And they don't require an army.” (Though a member of the MEK, Nariman often refers to the group in the third person). Former member Khodabandeh is blunter: “They have this dilemma. On one hand they have [used] violence for 30 years. On the other hand they have to get some support from someone (in America or other places) to survive after Saddam.” He dismissed the “peaceful” rhetoric as tactical posturing by the group, masking its terrorist character.

Friends in Need

When the Iran-Iraq war ended, an MEK commander asked about the future of the group said, “We have always adjusted tactics in our fighting. The form of fighting is secondary.” Predictably, the group is retooling itself again, and according to some sources, moving its operations to a new frontier.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has granted permission for the MEK to operate from the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, which borders Iran. This decison suggests to some that there is a possibility that the CIA may be deploying the MEK in western Afghanistan as well, to the provinces of Herat and Farah, thus doubling the length of Iranian border open to infiltration. As with Pakistan, the MEK is familiar with that terrain, having infiltrated western Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

Asked what the MEK might be doing, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Rick Francona, a former Air Force intelligence specialist with experience in the Middle East, says: “The primary focus will be the collection of intelligence, possibly even setting up infiltration and exfiltration routes and identifying agents in place inside Iran.” Francona explains that MEK teams could work in conjunction with any of these activities: “While U.S. technical intelligence sensors—electronic and visual—are useful, it is always better to have a human source that can penetrate the facility, tell us what is going on inside the buildings, who is doing what, intentions, progress, and so on. A good spy is hard to beat.”

But is MEK intelligence any good? Current and former U.S. officials have told Newsweek magazine that they knew of the major revelations about Iran’s nuclear program before the MEK made them public, and the group has a record of exaggerating intelligence or sometimes simply making things up. U.S. officials have learned to take MEK claims with very large grains of salt. David Kay, the former intelligence official who spent years investigating Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, expressed a balanced view: “They're often wrong, but occasionally they give you something.”

More alarming, however, is Khodabandeh’s warning that the MEK has been heavily infiltrated by Iranian intelligence, and is of limited utility. However, he concedes, “Having said that, I think it is the job of CIA officers to use the available forces on the ground.” Khodabandeh also notes that the CIA might be able to “clean” the organization of Iranian infiltrators, restoring some of its usefulness as a covert ops force. An alternative method, suggests Francona, would involve culling small operating groups of trustworthy individuals from the MEK’s ranks, employing them in isolated “cells” to limit the damage if any one of them is discovered. “There is precedent for this,” he says, although he refuses to elaborate.

Meanwhile, the latest U.S. intelligence assessment released recently now projects that Iran is a decade away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb. But MEK supporters say the assessment is both naïve and out of date, because of the subsequent election of ultra-conservative hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president in June. Tanter warns, “What the elections did was consolidate power under supreme leader Khamenei in such a fashion that there’s now very little need to conciliate the moderates in the Iranian government. I anticipate that Iran will take a tougher line on negotiations on Europe.” Iran’s recent rejection of a seemingly generous European “grand bargain” as “insulting” would appear to confirm Tanter’s prediction.

Despite the political changes on the ground, it is still hard to imagine the MEK playing a large role in any future regime change in Iran. With no more than 3,800 aging members, the group could hardly destabilize the Iranian government itself, but it may prove useful as an intelligence asset. With its allies currently frustrating U.S. efforts to refer the Iran nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council, Washington may be in need of friends and any help may be appreciated. The question is whether the MEK are the kind of friends you can count on.

Erik Sass is a freelance journalist. "

Miller Agrees to Testify in CIA Leak Probe - Yahoo! News

2005-09-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

Miller Agrees to Testify in CIA Leak Probe - Yahoo! News: "Miller Agrees to Testify in CIA Leak Probe By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - After nearly three months behind bars, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released Thursday after agreeing to testify about the Bush administration's disclosure of a covert CIA officer's identity.

Miller left the federal detention center in Alexandria, Va., after reaching an agreement with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. She will appear Friday morning before a grand jury investigating the case.

"My source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations," Miller said in a statement.

Her source was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, reported the Times, which supported her contention that her source should be protected.

"As we have throughout this ordeal, we continue to support Judy Miller in the decision she has made," said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "We are very pleased that she has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver, both by phone and in writing, releasing her from any claim of confidentiality and enabling her to testify."

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment.

Until this past summer, President Bush said leakers in the Plame probe would be fired. But in July after it was revealed that top aide Karl Rove and Libby had been involved in the leaks, Bush said "if someone committed a crime," he would be fired.

Miller has been in custody since July 6. A federal judge ordered her jailed when she refused to testify before the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's name by White House officials.

The disclosure of Plame's identity by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July 2003 triggered an inquiry that has caused political damage to the Bush White House and could still result in criminal charges against government officials.

The federal grand jury delving into the matter expires Oct. 28. Miller would have been freed at that time, but prosecutors could have pursued a criminal contempt of court charge against the reporter if she continued to defy Fitzgerald.

Of the reporters swept up in Fitzgerald's investigation, Miller is the only one to go to jail. She was found in civil contempt of court.

Time reporter Matthew Cooper testified to the grand jury after his magazine surrendered his notes and e-mail detailing a conversation with presidential aide Karl Rove.

Last year, Cooper and NBC's Tim Russert answered some of the prosecutor's questions about conversations they had with Libby.

Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus also answered the prosecutor's questions about a conversation with an unidentified administration official. Under the arrangements for his testimony, Pincus did not identify the official to the investigators, who already knew the official's identity. Prosecutors also say they know the identity of Miller's source.

Novak apparently has cooperated with prosecutors, though neither he nor his lawyer has said so.

Novak's column on July 14, 2003, came eight days after Plame's husband said in an opinion piece in the Times that the Bush administration twisted intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

Novak wrote that two senior administration officials told him Plame had suggested sending her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the African nation of Niger on behalf of the CIA to look into possible Iraqi purchases of uranium yellowcake.

Wilson's article in the Times had stated it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

The timing of Wilson's article was devastating for the White House, which was struggling to fend off criticism because no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. The president's claims of such weapons in Iraq were the main justification for going to war.

According to an affidavit of Miller's in the investigation, the reporter spoke to one or more confidential sources regarding Wilson's op-ed piece, which was titled, "What I Didn't Find In Africa." She never wrote a story about Wilson or Plame.

Fitzgerald wanted Miller to tell the grand jury about the confidential conversations she had with a particular administration official and the prosecutor demanded that she produce documents relating to those conversations.

Fitzgerald said in July that he thought he had identified Miller's source and that the source had waived confidentiality.

Miller's cooperation could clear the way for Fitzgerald to wind up his investigation. Whether he will seek any indictments or is trying to negotiate guilty pleas with anyone isn't publicly known.

While the expiration of the grand jury on Oct. 28 would seem to be a milestone signifying the end of the investigation, Fitzgerald could ask the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Thomas Hogan, to impanel a new grand jury.

Miller is a veteran national security reporter. In the 1980s, she became the first woman to be named chief of The Times' Cairo bureau in Egypt. For her work on Osama bin Laden in 2001, she won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism as part of a small team of Times reporters.

Starting in 2002, her stories about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq helped bolster the Bush administration's case for toppling Saddam Hussein. The failure to find the weapons prompted heavy criticism of Miller and the Times as well as of the Bush administration.

The news media is in a less-than-ideal position in the Plame probe.

The reporters' sources — rather than being whistle-blowers exposing wrongdoing and facing retaliation if identified — are government officials whose motives in leaking appear to have been to undermine the credibility of a critic of the Bush administration.

AP reporter Pete Yost in Washington contributed to this report"

Jerusalem Post | Larry Franklin Cops a Plea - Rolls over on AIPAC Spy Ring

2005-09-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "Sep. 29, 2005 21:16 | Updated Sep. 29, 2005 22:36
Plea bargain for analyst who gave information to AIPAC
By NATHAN GUTTMAN
Washington

Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, charged with providing officials in the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC) with classified defense information, has struck a plea bargain with the prosecution and is expected to testify against the former AIPAC employees in the case. Franklin will enter his guilty plea next Wednesday at the US District court in Alexandria, Virginia.

This latest development in the AIPAC case makes it clear that the main target of the federal investigation are now the two former lobby staffers – Steve Rosen, who was the policy director, and Keith Weissman, the senior Iran analyst. Both were fired from AIPAC last April and were indicted in August by a grand jury on charges of conspiring to receive and transfer classified information.

Reaching a plea bargain with Franklin will enable the federal prosecutors to strengthen their case against Rosen and Weissman by calling Franklin to the stand and having him testify that he had informed the AIPAC staffers that the information he was giving them is classified. This could weaken the AIPAC staffers defense, which is based on the claim they were not aware of the fact that the information they got was classified and that their contacts with Franklin should be seen as common practice for lobbyists in the US capital.

The indictment also mentions the fact that the AIPAC officials were in touch with Israeli diplomats and that they have transferred information they got from Franklin to the Israelis.

Edward Adams, spokesperson for the clerk's office at the US District court in Virginia, said that Franklin is expected to enter his plea on Wednesday, but it is not yet known to which charges it will relate.

"The court's records do not indicate what charge or charges Mr. Franklin will plead guilty to. A statement of facts and any plea agreement Mr. Franklin has struck with prosecutors will be filed during his October 5 hearing", said Adams in a statement put out Thursday.

Franklin's lawyer, Plato Cacheris was not available for comment.

An indictment handed down in May against Larry Franklin details his contacts with the AIPAC staffers and with Israeli officials and charges him on five counts regarding the transfer of classified defense information. If convicted, he might have gotten a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. Now it is assumed the plea bargain will get Franklin a much lighter sentence.
Franklin is also charged in a separate case of illegally storing classified documents at his home in West Virginia.

US attorney Paul McNulty, who is heading the probe, said in August that AIPAC, as an organization, is not the target of the investigation. He commended the lobby for taking action after learning of the conduct of its staffers and said that Rosen, Weissman and Franklin were motivated by their desire to advance their own foreign policy agenda.

Rosen, according to court filings and to sources close to the case, has been under FBI surveillance for the past five years. He headed AIPAC's executive lobbying branch and was known for his Middle East expertise and for his impressive connections with senior officials in the administration. It is still not known whether Rosen was the initial target of the investigation, but the latest developments suggest that the main goal of the prosecution now is to reach a conviction against Rosen.

The jury trial in the AIPAC case is scheduled to begin on January 3rd. During preliminary discussions in court this month, Rosen's lawyers claimed they are not receiving the access they need to classified documents used by the prosecution."

Forward Newspaper Online: Ex-Aipac Aide To Seek Dismissal of Case

2005-09-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

Ex-Aipac Aide To Seek Dismissal of Case
Will Cite Refusal Of Feds To Disclose Prime Evidence
By Ori Nir
September 30, 2005

WASHINGTON — Steve Rosen, the former pro-Israel lobbyist indicted last month for allegedly conspiring to obtain and disclose classified information, intends to ask a federal judge to dismiss his case on the grounds that the government has refused to disclose key evidence, the Forward has learned.

According to sources close to the case, federal prosecutors are refusing to release recordings of phone conversations intercepted by the FBI, in which Rosen — a former top official at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — allegedly referred to classified information that he had obtained. The prosecution contends that sharing this evidence with Rosen would constitute the disclosure of secret information.

Rosen's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has argued that since Rosen was the one quoting or referring to the allegedly classified material, he has been exposed to it already, and therefore no damage could be done by letting him review it, sources said. Not permitting him to review the evidence, Lowell argued, would severely impede Rosen's ability to defend himself. Sources with intimate knowledge of the legal proceedings said that Lowell has told the prosecution and Judge T. S. Ellis III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that failure to disclose such evidence should be regarded as cause for dismissing the case.

A dismissal, or even an order forcing more evidence to be shared, could bolster Jewish communal officials who say that Rosen and the other former Aipac official who has been indicted, Iran specialist Keith Weissman, are the victims of elements in the CIA, FBI and the Justice Department seeking to reduce the influence of the pro-Israel lobby. On the other hand, if the case goes to trial, it could cast an embarrassing spotlight on the ways in which Aipac collects information and wields power in Washington. The indictment charges that Rosen and Weissman passed classified material on to journalists and to diplomats of a foreign country, widely believed to be Israel.

The trial is scheduled to begin on January 3. Rosen and Weissman have pleaded not guilty, as has the Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, who allegedly passed the classified information on to them.

A spokesman for Lowell declined to confirm or deny that he disagrees with the prosecution over the disclosure of classified evidence.

At the August 16 hearing, when Rosen and Weissman appeared before Ellis, the judge expressed concern that attorneys for the two men were seeking too long a period of time to review the evidence relevant to the case. With the new complaint, it appears that some of the most critical evidence has yet to be disclosed to the defendants' lawyers.

Sources close to the case predict that proceedings will be riddled with technical and procedural disagreements, partially because the case is unfolding on uncharted legal ground: This is the first time that any individual is being tried for violating the specific section of the Espionage Act that served as the grounds for most of the indictment articles against Rosen and Weissman.

Aipac initially stood by the two men, but then pushed them out in April. The organization issued a statement saying that their activities do not comport with the organization's standards. The organization had been informed by the Department of Justice that it would not be a target of the investigation if it took several steps, including the firing of Rosen and Weissman.

Despite its decision to dismiss Rosen and Weissman, Aipac continues to pay their legal fees, in accordance with the organization's bylaws, sources close to Aipac confirmed. A spokesman for Aipac had no comment regarding Rosen's and Weissman's legal fees.

Aipac's membership has almost doubled since 2000, to 100,000 from 55,000, and its annual operating budget has more than doubled, to more than $40 million from $17 million. Sources close to the organization said that this fundraising year, which ends this week, may bring in as much as $47 million. Aipac has also established a capital fund and a building fund. By the end of 2007, Aipac for the first time will be housed in its own building, located a few blocks from the Capitol.

As a result, the organization is undergoing major restructuring, including an expansion of its Washington lobbying efforts, the number of issues it addresses and its outreach to Jewish communities across the country, according to three sources familiar with the efforts. Aipac's Jerusalem office is also growing, in both space and staff, sources said.

Among the issues added to its lobbying agenda are homeland security, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Its venture into homeland security is a first dip into domestic issues for the organization, which has made foreign policy its strength.

One of the hallmarks of the restructuring is that the congressional and executive-branch lobbying departments, run separately for years, will be rolled into one outfit. It will be headed jointly by Brad Gordon, who currently runs congressional lobbying, and Marvin Feuer, a senior defense analyst. In the wake of the FBI investigation, some critics have said that Rosen relied too heavily on the executive branch and allegedly became embroiled in its secrets. Feuer has assumed Rosen's responsibilities.

The changes have been in the works since 2003, all the sources said, and predate the FBI raid last year that roiled the organization. Much of the organization's growth has to do with renewed activist interest in Israel since the breakdown of the peace process in 2000 and the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, according to insiders. The momentum accelerated with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Aipac has expanded its top management team, hired a number of new regional directors and added lobbyists. No one in the organization would give specific numbers.

With reporting by JTA.

The Media Line - AIPAC REPORTEDLY PAYING LEGAL BILLS OF THE INDICTED OFFICIALS IT FIRED

2005-09-25T08:46:00.000-07:00

The Media Line - News Detail: "AIPAC REPORTEDLY PAYING LEGAL BILLS OF THE INDICTED OFFICIALS IT FIRED… “America’s lobby for Israel,” AIPAC, is reportedly paying the legal bills for the two officials of the organization that have been indicted for illegally passing classified information to Israel. According to the JTA news agency, the contracts of all AIPAC employees contain indemnification clauses that cover legal expenses through the appellate stage. In the case of Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen, the cost has already topped $1 million in fees. When the scandal broke, AIPAC officials promised to stand by the pair. But the two were nevertheless fired shortly thereafter, some news sources reporting that the firings had been demanded by the Justice Department in order to keep attention focused on the former employees rather than the organization itself."

The Billings Outpost - Bush’s neocon cadre falls apart

2005-09-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

The Billings Outpost: "Bush’s neocon cadre falls apart
By JIM LARSON
The Billings Outpost

The Pentagon cadre that once dominated American policy in the Middle East has disintegrated.
The decline of public support for the war and a widening Pentagon spy scandal have coincided with the departure or reassignment of several key Defense Department policy-makers, men who helped to formulate the Bush doctrine of preemptive war.

In August 2004 CBS news reported that the FBI was conducting an espionage investigation inside the office of the Secretary of Defense. Roughly one year later, the FBI arrested Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin. He allegedly handed highly classified documents to a pro-Israeli lobbying group that in turn passed the documents to the government of Israel, a 26-page indictment said. The indictment referred to, but did not name, other officials of the Defense Department, the federal government and foreign officials.

Mr. Franklin had close ties to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and to Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, the CBS report said. Both men left the Pentagon after the FBI investigation became public. Mr. Wolfowitz moved to head the World Bank, and Mr. Feith resigned, citing the need to spend more time with his family.

Mr. Franklin had been brought from the Defense Intelligence Agency to work in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, a group formed in October 2002 to provide policy planning for Iraq, according to sourcewatch.org.

Deputy undersecretary William Luti oversaw the OSP. In terms of influence, Mr. Luti’s operation came to rival the CIA and the DIA as a source of pre-invasion intelligence and analysis, analysis that found its way to the president through the vice president’s office. A former Navy captain, Mr. Luti had worked in the vice president’s office before moving to the Pentagon, the Asia Times said.

UPI reporter Richard Sale cited a congressional memo that called Mr. Luti’s staff a loose group of acolytes and hired hands for Vice President Richard Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, but the group was more than a mere collection of sycophantic brains for hire.

They shared a common vision of America’s role in the Middle East, and Israel was the main component of that vision. America’s role was to shore up the region’s one true democracy while simultaneously opposing the governments of those nations that posed a real threat to Israel. The 9-ll attack galvanized the group, and they set their sights on Iraq. Their rise to power and ideological underpinning was documented in a New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh called “Selective Intelligence.”

Hersh noted that OSP Director Abram Shulsky studied under neoconservative icon Leo Strauss, who viewed the world as a place where isolated liberal democracies lived in constant danger from hostile foreign elements. Those elements had to be confronted vigorously by strong leaders, employing deception if necessary.

Along with Mr. Shulsky, Mr. Luti had been credited with making the neoconservative vision prevail over the views of the CIA and the State Department. One Pentagon adviser said, “Shulsky and Luti won the policy debate. They beat ’em – they cleaned up against State and the CIA,” Mr. Hersh reported.

In addition to the OSP, Mr. Luti oversaw the Pentagon’s Near East/South Asia Office. Working in that office was Richard Rhode. Both Mr. Rhode and Mr. Luti were frequently mentioned in FBI interviews, wrote Mr. Sale, citing federal law enforcement officials. The interviews dealt chiefly with the nature and extent of Mr. Rhodes contacts with Israel.

Mr. Luti was reassigned in the wake of the espionage investigation. Mr. Rhodes is on administrative leave, Mr. Sale wrote, attributing the information to two former senior U.S. intelligence officials.

At Defense Mr. Luti reported to Undersecretary Feith, the Pentagon’s No. 3 man.

Gen. Tommy Franks described Mr. Feith as academically well qualified for his position, but also as a theoretician with impractical ideas. In his autobiography Gen. Franks said that the undersecretary had a reputation among the Pentagon’s uniformed officers for “confusing abstract memoranda with results in the field.”

As the Pentagon prepared for an invasion of Iraq, tension built between Gen. Franks’ staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In an effort to deal with his senior planners’ growing resentment towards Mr. Feith, the general told them, “I’ll worry about OSD, all of them – including Doug Feith, who’s getting a reputation around here as the dumbest f___ing guy on the planet.”

One of the unluckiest guys in the nation’s capital turned out to be the Iran analyst who worked in Mr. Feith’s office. When Mr. Franklin approached Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee with classified information, they were already under surveillance by the FBI. Caught red-handed, Mr. Franklin began to cooperate with the FBI.

Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were indicted just a few weeks after Mr. Franklin’s arrest. That indictment contained additional charges against Mr. Franklin, and according to an August 2004 Knight Ridder story the investigation extends beyond the mid-level analyst.

Citing three sources close to the investigation, the story by Warren P. Strobel described a probe that had been going on for more than two years and had focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense’s office.

Investigators were also trying to determine if Pentagon officials gave highly classified American intelligence to the Iraqi National Congress, which in turn may have passed the information to Iran. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi denied that his group had done anything wrong. Both investigations centered on Mr. Feith’s office.

In addition to these inquiries, the FBI has been reviewing past counter-intelligence probes that did not result in prosecutions. Among those investigated were Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith and Pentagon insider Richard Perle, the Asia Times reported.

While working for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1978, Mr. Wolfowitz was investigated for passing a classified document to Israel that dealt with an arms sale to an Arab government. The probe was eventually dropped.

Mr. Feith was fired from President Reagan’s National Security Council in 1982 for leaking classified data to Israel, according to former counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro, the UPI story said.

A close adviser to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Perle was picked up by an FBI wire tap as he discussed classified information with an Israeli embassy official in 1970. He was a member of Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s staff at the time, Mr. Lobe wrote.

Mr. Perle resigned from the chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board in 2003, Jim Lobe reported in the Asia Times.

Mr. Perle quit the board after it was revealed that he had worked as a consultant to Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications company that was attempting to obtain Pentagon approval to be sold to a group of Asian investors, CBS news reported.

He had also advised investors at a conference held by Goldman Sachs on the implications of possible U.S. conflicts with Iraq and North Korea. He had attended a Defense Intelligence Agency briefing on the matter just three weeks before, the Los Angeles Times said.

Mr. Perle has worked within the American defense establishment for more than 30 years, and he has assisted and mentored Mr. Luti, Mr. Feith and Mr. Wolfowitz over the decades. His departure marked the beginning of the decline of the group that one author called “the Vulcans.”

As the wreckage of the neoconservative derailment at the Pentagon settles, the Bush administration has lowered its expectations for what can be acheived in Iraq, according to the paper China View.

One senior U.S. official involved in policy formulation told the paper that what the administration had hoped to achieve had never been realistic. It had begun a process of reevaluation, and its goal now was to ensure that a constitution is put in place that can be easily amended later so that Iraq can achieve democracy. "

JTA NEWS -- Mideast analyst Kenneth Pollack Claims to be USGO1

2005-08-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

JTA NEWS: "Mideast analyst Kenneth Pollack.

BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Prominent Mideast analyst says he’s
U.S. official in case of ex-AIPAC men
By Matthew E. Berger
August 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (JTA) — Mideast analyst Kenneth Pollack is one of two U.S. government officials referenced in the indictment against two former staffers of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, JTA has learned.
But Pollack, who was a staffer on President Clinton’s National Security Council, said he didn’t give the AIPAC staffers any classified information. Pollack also said the information that Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former director of foreign policy issues, is accused of passing on to a reporter could not have come from him.

“I believe I am USGO-1,” Pollack told JTA on Monday, using a term in the indictment for U.S. Government Official No. 1.

A second source, speaking on condition of anonymity, has verified the information.

Neither Pollack nor the other unnamed government official — identified by sources as David Satterfield, a former deputy assistant secretary of state — has been charged with a crime. That has raised questions about the government’s case against Rosen, former AIPAC Iran analyst Keith Weissman and Larry Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst accused of passing classified information to the AIPAC staffers.

The three men pled not guilty earlier this month, and their trial is set for January.

Supporters of Rosen and Weissman in the Jewish community argue that if the people who allegedly gave them the sensitive material aren’t in trouble, then the information Rosen and Weissman are accused of passing to journalists and three officials at the Israeli Embassy in Washington can hardly warrant their prosecution.

Pollack left government in March 2001 and today is director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Satterfield recently was promoted to deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Pollack confirmed he had lunch with Rosen and Weissman in December 2000 and discussed U.S. policy in Iraq.

“I don’t remember the lunch and don’t remember anything about the lunch,” Pollack said. “But they know I had lunch with Steve and Keith, and I don’t deny it.”

According to the indictment, Rosen spoke with an unnamed reporter after the lunch and gave classified information about policy options and internal government deliberations.

The indictment says Pollack had access to the classified information Rosen allegedly discussed with the journalist, but doesn’t say Pollack gave the information to the lobbyists.

That’s a sharp contrast to the language regarding Satterfield, who is expressly said to have discussed classified information with Rosen.

The sequence of events is part of a charge of conspiracy to communicate national defense information brought against Rosen and Weissman earlier this month. Pollack said he could not have given the two AIPAC staffers any classified information, and the indictment doesn’t suggest it either.

The new revelations are likely to intensify speculation in Washington that Rosen and Weissman are being targeted for conducting the normal Washington practice of trading sensitive information.

The two men’s interaction with Pollack and Satterfield is believed to be central to the prosecutors’ case that Rosen and Weissman engaged in a pattern of seeking classified information and disseminating it to journalists and the Israeli government.

Pollack, the author of two books on U.S. policy in the Middle East and a regular commentator on CNN, said he has met with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the eastern district of Virginia, and believes he’s not a subject of the investigation. State Department officials said Satterfield has been told the same thing.

A spokeswoman at the U.S, Attorney’s Office had no comment. Rosen’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, was unavailable for comment.

Pollack said that, according to information he has been given, Rosen spoke with an unnamed journalist after meeting with Pollack, telling the journalist that he had received from a U.S. government official an eight-point plan for regime change in Iraq. He then gave a broad description of the plan.

“There was never an eight-point plan for regime change in Iraq,” Pollack said Monday.

Pollack said he may have given Rosen and Weissman the same “talking points” on American regime-change policy that he gave to other lobbyists and Middle East policy wonks, but did not lay out a specific plan.

Because the meeting occurred just a month before the end of the Clinton administration, little work was being done on the issue until President Bush came to office.

Pollack said the talking points he gave Rosen and Weissman didn’t include sensitive information. Rosen is not accused in the indictment of knowingly giving classified information to a third party in 2000, as he is on other occasions.

But Pollack suggests the meeting he had with Rosen and Weissman was similar to others he held with numerous parties interested in the administration’s Middle East agenda.

Pollack said he can not imagine he gave classified information to Rosen and Weissman.

“I had a standard repertory of lines that I gave,” he said. “I knew what was kosher and not.”

© JTA. Reproduction of material without written permission is strictly prohibited"

State Department Biography of David M. Satterfield (American Traitor)

2005-08-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

Biography of David M. Satterfield: "

Biography of David M. Satterfield

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
Term of Appointment: June 2004 to February 2005

David M. Satterfield assumed the position of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary on June 1, 2004, having served for the previous three years as Deputy Assistant Secretary. He was Ambassador to Lebanon from September 1998 to June 2001, and was confirmed by the Senate in May 2004 as the next Ambassador to Jordan. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Ambassador Satterfield served on the National Security Council Staff from 1993 to 1996 as Director for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and held the position of Director of the Department of State’s Office of Israel and Arab-Israeli Affairs from 1996 to 1998.

David Satterfield entered the Foreign Service in 1980, and has served overseas in Jeddah, Tunis, Beirut, and Damascus. In addition to other State Department assignments in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, he was Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff 1990 to 1993. Ambassador Satterfield is the recipient of the Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award, Department Senior Performance Awards, and six Department of State Superior Honor Awards, notably for his work on the Middle East peace process.

Ambassador Satterfield was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended the University of Maryland and Georgetown University.

[End]

Released April 2005"

Haaretz - NY Times: Satterfield discussed secret data with ex-AIPAC official

2005-08-18T20:47:00.000-07:00

Haaretz - Israel News: "Last update - 02:19 19/08/2005

NY Times: Satterfield discussed secret data with ex-AIPAC official

By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent

WASHINGTON - David Satterfield, a former senior State Department official who is deputy to the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is mentioned in the indictment against former AIPAC official Steve Rosen as one of the senior American officials who discussed classified material with the defendant, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

Rosen and another former official of the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, Keith Weissman, were recently indicted for allegedly passing classified information obtained from American officials to Israeli officials.

The indictment does not mention Satterfield by name; it merely refers to a "government official" who met with Rosen twice in early 2002 and discussed classified matters. However, the Times identified this official as
Satterfield.

The indictment also does not say whether the official in question is suspected of breaking any laws. However, a briefing given by the federal prosecution when the indictment was filed seemed to indicate that there are no plans to charge any of the officials mentioned in the charge sheet, with the exception of Pentagon official Larry Franklin.

Before taking up his current job, Satterfield served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. In this capacity, he was a frequent visitor to the region, and was very involved in both Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and talks between Israel and the Untied States.

According to the Times, another American official cited in the indictment has since resigned from government service. However, the Times did not give this official's name."

Jerusalem Post | Satterfield named in AIPAC indictment

2005-08-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "JPost.com » International » Article

Aug. 18, 2005 21:40 | Updated Aug. 18, 2005 22:18
Satterfield named in AIPAC indictment
By NATHAN GUTTMAN
WASHINGTON

David Satterfield, who served as the second-ranking Middle East officer in the State Department, is the US government official who is mentioned in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee indictment.

The US Justice Department is accusing two former officials in the lobby, former AIPAC policy director Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, of unlawfully receiving classified information and passing it on to Israeli diplomats and to members of the press. Satterfield is not described as the source of this classified information in the indictment, which focuses on information the two AIPAC lobbyists received from Larry Franklin, an analyst in the Pentagon's Iran desk.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Satterfield was the person who was in touch with Rosen and that he was the one who discussed classified information with Rosen. Legal sources close to the case confirmed that Satterfield's name has come up in the context of the investigation.

The indictment, handed down on August 4, does not mention Satterfield by name, but refers to him as "Government Official 2" (USGO2). The indictment details two separate meetings Satterfield held with Rosen, both in 2002, in which classified information was discussed, though it is not clear what this information was and whether Satterfield has broken any law by discussing the information with the AIPAC lobbyist.

According to the report, the State Department consulted with the Department of Justice prior to appointing Satterfield to his new post, as deputy chief of mission in Baghdad, and was informed that Satterfield is not a suspect in the case and that it should have no effect on his new assignment.

As a senior official at the Near East bureau of the State Department, Satterfield was in close contact with all those who deal with the Middle East, including representatives of AIPAC.

Another US official is mentioned in the indictment as "Government Official 1" (USGO1). This official's name was not available, but it is presumed that he too is a former employee in the State Department Near East bureau.

Three Israeli diplomats are also mentioned in the case, and referred to by code names "Foreign Official" – FO1, FO2 and FO3. Israeli and American sources have identified FO3 as Naor Gilon, the former political officer at the Israeli embassy in Washington, and FO1 as Rafi Barak, former deputy chief of mission at the embassy. Israeli sources emphasized that, contrary to prior media reports, ambassador Danny Ayalon is not the diplomat referred to in the indictment as FO2.

The trial of Rosen, Weissman and Franklin is due to begin on January 3 at the US federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia."

Israeli Spy David Satterfield Tried to Use Hariri Death to Strong Arm Syria

2005-08-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

MyUSTINET News: U.S. Official Calls On Syria To Cooperate: "U.S. Official Calls On Syria To Cooperate
Monday, 28-Feb-2005 7:40AM Associated Press - AP Online

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield called on Syria Monday to cooperate in the war on terrorism in Iraq and Lebanon.

Speaking after a meeting with Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud, Satterfield said "a just and suitable settlement should be reached between Lebanon and Syria."

"Lebanon should not be excluded from the trend of freedom and democracy that is sweeping the region, from Pakistan to the Palestinian territories ... especially as Lebanon has a long history in democracy", he said.

He reiterated his government's support of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for Syria to withdraw its approximately 15,000 troops from Lebanon and for the dissolution of local and foreign militias, in reference to Hezbollah and armed Palestinian factions.

Satterfield called the Feb. 14 slaying of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri "a national and international tragedy. The United States and the U.N. urge the Lebanese government to uncover the culprits and bring them to justice as quickly as possible."

He stressed, "We want to have better relations with Syria, but that can only be possible when Syria cooperates in Iraq and in putting an end to terrorism.""

whitehouse.gov Personnel Announcement of Israeli Spy David Satterfield

2005-08-18T19:45:00.000-07:00

Personnel Announcement: "For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 26, 2004

Personnel Announcement
President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate two individuals to serve in his administration:

The President intends to nominate David Michael Satterfield, of Virginia, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Ambassador Satterfield currently serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department. He previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon. Earlier in his career, Ambassador Satterfield served on the National Security Council as Director for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. In addition, he also served as Director of the State Department's Office of Israel and Arab-Israeli Affairs. Ambassador Satterfield earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland."

BIOGRAPHIC SUMMARY of Israeli Spy David Michael Satterfield

2005-08-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

Text: Satterfield Senate Statement, Ambassador-Designate To Lebanon: "TEXT: SATTERFIELD SENATE STATEMENT, AMBASSADOR-DESIGNATE TO LEBANON
(Highest goal will be to encourage progress toward peace)

July 16, 1998
Washington -- If confirmed as Ambassador to Lebanon, David M. Satterfield says his "highest goal will be to encourage progress toward peace through resumption of Lebanon-Israel and Syria-Israel negotiations, to help achieve a lasting end to the violence in south Lebanon, and to support the democratic process in Lebanon, including Presidential elections this fall."

At his July 16 confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Satterfield noted that he served in Lebanon "a decade ago during a time of great challenge and tragedy for the United States and for the people of Lebanon. I look forward to assisting as Lebanon rebuilds, and above all to the advancement of the interests and ideals of the United States," he said.

In the past 20 years, Satterfield testified, "the United States has had neither a higher or more consistent commitment than the quest for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace," in the Middle East.

"Alongside our extraordinary, ongoing efforts to realize such a secure and enduring settlement, we remain dedicated to the goal of a fully sovereign and independent Lebanon, free of all foreign forces and able once more to take its rightful place among the nations of the world. We believe strongly that attainment of a comprehensive regional peace will help bring about the fulfillment of this goal," he stated.

Following are the texts of Satterfield's Senate statement, as prepared for delivery, and his bio:

(Begin text)

STATEMENT OF DAVID M. SATTERFIELD

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to appear before the Committee. I am deeply honored to have been nominated as Ambassador to the Republic of Lebanon and I am grateful to the President and Secretary Albright for their trust and confidence.

It is a special privilege and personal pleasure to have been nominated to return as Ambassador to Lebanon, where I served a decade ago during a time of great challenge and tragedy for the United States and for the people of Lebanon. I look forward to assisting as Lebanon rebuilds, and above all to the advancement of the interests and ideals of the United States.

My career with the U.S. Government over the past twenty years has been focused almost entirely on the Middle East. In that time, the United States has had neither a higher or more consistent commitment than the quest for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace.

Alongside our extraordinary, ongoing efforts to realize such a secure and enduring settlement, we remain dedicated to the goal of a fully sovereign and independent Lebanon, free of all foreign forces and able once more to take its rightful place among the nations of the world. We believe strongly that attainment of a comprehensive regional peace will help bring about the fulfillment of this goal.

Our friendship with the people of Lebanon spans almost the entire history of our republic and of the modern Lebanese state. While we remember the terrible sacrifices made by Americans and Lebanese alike during the years of war, we also recall our shared values and ideals, including a firm commitment to democracy, freedom and a vibrant civil society.

I have experienced first-hand with the people of Lebanon and with their neighbors -- Arab and Israeli -- the suffering that war and terror can bring. If confirmed, my highest goal will be to encourage progress toward peace through resumption of Lebanon-Israel and Syria-Israel negotiations, to help achieve a lasting end to the violence in south Lebanon, and to support the democratic process in Lebanon, including Presidential elections this fall.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you in the Congress and to pursuing these objectives an behalf of the United States and the American people.

Thank you.

BIOGRAPHIC SUMMARY

NAME: David Michael Satterfield

POSITION FOR WHICH CONSIDERED: Ambassador to the Republic of Lebanon

PRESENT POSITION: Director, Office of Israel and Arab-Israeli Affairs, Department of State

FOREIGN SERVICE GRADE: Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor

DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: December 18, 1954, Baltimore, Maryland

MARITAL STATUS: Married

NAME OF SPOUSE: Martha Anne Satterfield

NAMES OF CHILDREN: Alexander Michael Satterfield Victoria Maria Satterfield

EDUCATION: B.A., University of Maryland, College Park, 1972-1976 Georgetown University Law Center, 1976-1978

MILITARY SERVICE: None

FOREIGN LANGUAGES: Arabic and French

(End text)"

The late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield

2005-08-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Rafic Hariri - News: "UNITED STATES

Sunday, November 03, 2002
The President of the Counsel of Ministers, Mr. Rafic Hariri, flew to Washington DC to continue his tour of countries and international institutions participating in the Paris II conference.

Premier Hariri met with the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Horst Köhler, and “reviewed recent economic and financial developments in Lebanon and the upcoming Paris II meeting.” The Premier also met with the President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn. He went on to discuss the situation in the Middle East, the Iraqi issue and the latest developments in the occupied Palestinian territories with US Secretary of State, Colin Powell. The talks were attended by Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East William Burns, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield and Lebanese Ambassador to Washington Farid Abboud. They also covered the Wazzani water issue and Lebanon’s efforts in this regard.

During his meeting with Mr. Hariri, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill officially notified the Lebanese Premier that the United States would participate in the Paris II conference.

After meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Prime Minister Hariri concluded his visit by meeting with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, after which he said, “We discussed the participation of the United States in the Paris II conference aimed at supporting Lebanon in its financial reform efforts,” in addition to the situation in the Middle East and Iraq, as well as bilateral US-Lebanese relations.

Accompanying Prime Minister Hariri on his trip were Finance Minister Fouad Siniora, Economy Minister Bassil Fuleihan, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and the Premier’s advisor on European affairs Basile Yared."

Israeli Spy David Satterfield Knows 4 Words of Arabic

2005-08-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Angry Arab News Service/????? ????? ?????? ??????: "Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Repeat After Me: Batata: So US deputy assistant secretary of State, David Satterfield, is visiting Lebanon. Why now? Nothing special. He has heard a lot of good things about the quality of Falafil in Lebanon, and wanted to see for himself. When European and Asian diplomats visit Lebanon, they speak in Arabic. But Mr. Satterfield is an American "Middle East expert" so I noticed that whenever he spoke during this visit (always in English of course--he spent years working on his English afterall--he uses one Arabic word for extra effect. On the first day of his visit, he used the word "fitnah" (sedition), on the second day of the visit, he used the word "fawran" (immediately). It is expected that that on his third day, he is planning the use the word "batata" (potato). His family must be so proud of him for his extensive use of the Arabic language. At this rate, Mr. Satterfield may actually use four full words of Arabic during this touristic visit. His first meeting was with the right-wing Maronite patriarch (who, like the Mufti in Lebanon, is an enthusiastic book burner, and firmly believes that there is a "Satan's worshipping conspiracy in Lebanon-kid you not), and Bush has decided to invite the latter to the White House. Perhaps France gave the Americans figures of the various sizes of the sects in Lebanon from the times when France colonized Lebanon after WWI."

Israeli Spy David M. Satterfield - Keynote Address to the Israel Policy Forum

2005-08-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

Israel Policy Forum: "NEA Deputy Assistant Secretary David M. Satterfield
Keynote Address to the Israel Policy Forum
Washington, D.C.
March 11, 2004

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. It’s wonderful to be with you again today. As I’ve watched IPF develop over the past 10 years I have been impressed with its energetic and capable leadership. Truly, the extraordinary talent, expertise, and accomplishment represented in this room are a testament to IPF’s growth and achievement. I have very much appreciated the opportunities I have had to work with IPF over the years, and look forward to continuing that dialogue with all of you today and in the future.

The past twelve months have been a time of remarkable change in the Middle East. The end of Saddam’s regime is central to that change, but only the start. The region’s people find themselves facing a series of critical questions related to post-war reconstruction, reconciliation and territorial borders, and the emergence of democracy and open societies. And they are posing these questions in new ways, and with new urgency. They are questioning old assumptions, and old rhetoric, with a critical eye. Clearly, the status quo is an unacceptable paradigm. We can’t be naïve about it. There are entrenched forces that will resist change, and throw up obstacles along the way. And in some cases they will be successful for a time. But new voices are being heard, and the direction is clear.

This is a hopeful sign. Because a new vision for the region cannot be imposed from the outside: it must rooted in the experience and aspirations of the region’s people. That is the only basis for change, and the only path toward resolving the conflicts and curing the economic and political ills out of which extremism and insecurity grow. Even so, powerful challenges loom on many fronts, from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to Iraq to the global war on terrorism. Many Middle East societies are falling further and further behind in the global economy, and Arab thinkers themselves highlight mounting deficits in educational and political modernization.

And underlying all those problems is a crisis of understanding. The fact that a recent survey by the Pew Foundation found that 94 percent of Egyptians, for example, have an unfavorable view of the United States ought to be a cause for sober reflection. So should the palpable unease of many in the United States about the Middle East and prospects for the future. Recent polls showing a majority of Europeans believing that Israel now poses a threat to world peace are as troubling as they are ill-founded, and equally alarming is the creeping return of anti-Semitism in political discourse. Gaps between Europeans and Americans in viewing many Middle East issues are widening, not narrowing – even as our stake in addressing these issues is growing. If ever there were a time for looking honestly at where we’ve been together, and for speaking some plain truths about where we’re headed, this is it.

I don’t mean to suggest that there is a neat path ahead of us. There isn’t. And I certainly don’t mean to suggest that the Department of State has a monopoly on wisdom on any of these issues. We don’t. And if you don’t believe me, there is no shortage of people in Washington who will confirm it for you.

It seems to me that we face four interconnected policy challenges in the Greater Middle East today. The first challenge is the topic of today’s symposium: renewing progress toward the two-state vision which President Bush has outlined, and which is so deeply in the interests of Israelis as well as Palestinians. Second is the struggle against terrorists and their state sponsors, as well as against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Third is the historic challenge of supporting efforts at economic and political reform in a region which has for too long known too little of either. And fourth, and not least, is the challenge of helping Iraqis liberated from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein to build the unified, stable and prosperous country that they and their neighbors so richly deserve.

Again, these are enormously difficult issues, and change will not come easily or quickly, nor will it be risk-free. But, taken together, progress on each of these four issues offers a positive agenda for the Greater Middle East. They offer a basis for making common cause with people and leaderships in the region struggling against the militant minorities who threaten us all. And they offer a basis for hope – the ultimate antidote to the despair on which violent extremists thrive.

Let me touch briefly on each of these policy challenges in turn.

Israel and the Palestinians

We are now facing a compelling, complicated, and endlessly frustrating challenge: how to rekindle some sense of hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I hardly need to tell any of you in this audience that hope is in very short supply right now. It is evaporating in the understandable rage of Israelis suffering through horrible acts of terror. It is being swallowed up in the deep frustrations, daily humiliations and wounded dignity of Palestinians living under occupation. And what is being lost in the process is the vision of two states that President Bush offered on June 24, 2002.

The truth is that in the long term, nothing would have a greater impact in shaping a positive future for the Middle East than the realization of the President’s vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace, security, and dignity. In order for that to happen, both Israelis and Palestinians must see a different reality emerging than the one they see today. Israelis must see an end to terror, and hope for a final end to the conflict and full acceptance in the region. Palestinians must see their dignity respected, their hope restored for an early, negotiated end to the occupation which began in 1967, and the creation of a viable, independent state of their own.

But more than this, it will require bold choices for peace from Israelis and Palestinians themselves, strong leadership from the United States, and active diplomacy with our friends in the region and throughout the international community. We are consulting intensively with the Israeli government now to determine how Prime Minister Sharon’s disengagement proposals might serve to bring us closer to the two-state vision. It is possible that this is a moment of opportunity in the seemingly endless effort to bring peace to the Middle East. As you all know, last December in Herzliya, Prime Minister Sharon said, “Israel will not remain in all the places where it is today.” In that speech Sharon laid out in broad brushstrokes some ideas about what he referred to as “the unilateral security step of disengagement from the Palestinians.” The United States believes that direct negotiation between the two parties is the best way to achieve a just, lasting, and secure peace. However, if Israel has now decided that its security needs dictate a certain level of disengagement, we must now work on ensuring that any such steps are consistent with the roadmap and continue to lead towards the two-state vision.

There certainly do exist disengagement steps that Israel can take that would decrease friction between Israelis and Palestinians, improve Palestinian freedom of movement, and advance progress toward the President’s two-state vision. Such steps, however, must help, rather than hinder, realization of the goal the President has set forth. And such steps should be part of a strategic, comprehensive approach that takes into consideration the need for positive actions by Israel in both Gaza and the West Bank. In short, actions taken by Israel – and the Palestinians - ought to move the sides closer to the two-state solution, not farther away from it. In this regard, we are continuing to urge the Israeli and Palestinian Prime Ministers to meet and resume direct contacts that can make possible progress toward an agreed settlement. Because there is no substitute for the roadmap’s final destination: a negotiated two-state solution that ends the conflict permanently and sees two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

Such a Palestinian state cannot be built upon a foundation of terror and violence. On that there can be no concessions, no flexibility, no turning a blind eye. Palestinians will have to be honest with themselves on this point, and they will have to confront those among them who would drag Palestinian dreams further down a tragic dead-end path. As President Bush has emphasized repeatedly, a transformed Palestinian leadership is essential. Ending violence and reforming Palestinian political institutions are not a favor to any outsider – they are deeply in the self-interest of Palestinians, and the only workable path to statehood and the end of occupation.

But the emergence of a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel is not just a dream of the Palestinian people. Its realization is intimately connected with Israel’s future as well, and the kind of Israel that Israelis will pass on to their children and grandchildren. Israel’s national political dialogue has been dominated in recent months by attempts to answer that question. Because as Israeli settlements expand, and their populations increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to see how the two peoples will be separated into two states. The fact is that settlements continue to grow today, encouraged by specific government policies, and at enormous expense to Israel’s economy. And this persists even as it becomes clear that the logic of settlements and the reality of demographics could threaten the future of Israel as a Jewish democracy.

For friends of Israel, the conclusion is hard to escape. Settlement activity must stop, because it ultimately undermines Israeli as well as Palestinian interests. The course of the security fence remains a significant problem as well – not its existence as a separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank – but because its planned route inside the West Bank isolates Palestinians from each other, prejudices negotiations and, like settlement activity, takes us further from the two state goal.

Just as it is essential to drive home to Palestinians that violence and terror will never achieve their aspirations, so too it is important to preserve the possibility that a viable state can be achieved by a Palestinian leadership committed once and for all to ending terror. That reality underpins the President’s continued personal commitment to his June 24 vision, and to the roadmap as a means of pursuing it.

In the meantime, we are left with the reality that roadmaps and visions and final status proposals do not implement themselves. They require hard work and hard choices from all of us. We will continue to work with Palestinians and Israelis, with the Quartet, and with our friends in the region and the international community, to help the parties to this conflict make those hard choices.

Struggle Against Terrorism and WMD

Another critical challenge is our ongoing struggle against terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. I’ll just touch on a few of the major issues before us, with particular emphasis on Libya, which has become a real success story and demonstrates that our efforts to fight terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction can indeed result in a positive outcome for everyone involved.

Libya is a major success in our efforts to halt both state sponsored terrorism and the proliferation of the world's most dangerous weapons. Following long and determined diplomacy, Libya – a nation that had been a sponsor of terrorism and had aggressively sought WMD capabilities – made the right and historic decision to eliminate its WMD and MTCR-class missile programs. In the space of less than three months, Libya has invited U.S. and UK experts, along with officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to help destroy the dangerous legacy of its decades-long effort to obtain and deploy chemical and nuclear weapons. .

Libya’s cooperation has been excellent. In less than three months, Libya's declared nuclear capacity has been effectively dismantled; its chemical munitions have been destroyed; its chemical agents are declared, consolidated and awaiting destruction; and its Scud C missiles have been removed. On March 8, Libya signed the IAEA Additional Protocol and acknowledged its history of non-compliance – an example we hope other nations will follow.

President Bush has said that as the Libyan government demonstrates its seriousness, the U.S. will respond in good faith and with the possibility of better relations. We can now say that U.S.-Libyan relations are on a path of gradual, step-by-step normalization. We are engaged in a bilateral political dialogue, U.S. diplomats are back in Tripoli for the first time in 24 years, Americans can travel to Libya, and Libya has been invited to open an Interest Section in Washington.

The message for the region, and for the world, is clear. The U.S. is committed to working with our allies and with multilateral institutions to address through diplomatic means the challenge posed by the proliferation of WMD and terrorism. As President Bush put it, “old hostilities do not need to go on forever.”

On the other side, however, we have Iran, about which not only the United States but also an increasing number of other countries have profound concerns. While Iran has made gestures toward greater cooperation on WMD issues, recent reports have called into question the sincerity of those gestures. And they must be weighed against the backdrop of Iran’s previous broken promises, its crackdown on reformists, and its continuing support for terrorism. Syria poses another challenge. Secretary Powell made unmistakably clear to President Asad last year that the United States, remains committed to comprehensive peace, including on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks. But he also laid out candidly the range of our concerns and what it would take to build a more normal relationship. The point is that the Syrian regime can’t have it both ways: it can’t profess a commitment to peace on the one hand, and with the other support groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which are doing everything they can to explode prospects for peace.

Iraq

The third component of our challenges in the Middle East today is, of course, Iraq. Both the Iraqi people and we face a huge and complicated a task of reconstruction after decades of brutal misrule by Saddam Hussein. However, the possibilities are before us are equally huge. There can be no doubt that security is a daunting and immediate problem. The March 2 bombings in Karbala and Baghdad are a reminder of how ruthless and vicious an enemy we are facing. So too are the issues of economic reconstruction and accelerating a political process as we prepare to hand over authority to a sovereign, independent Iraqi government on July 1. But there can also be no doubt that Iraqis are finally free from the terrible atrocities and waste of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Step by difficult step, Iraqis are beginning to put their society back together again. Basic services have largely been restored. Iraqi ministers are taking on more and more responsibilities. Ordinary citizens are expressing their views freely, in ways that were simply unimaginable under Saddam. And the compromise draft Iraqi constitution is a milestone for Iraq and for the region, not only enshrining basic civil and political rights, but also serving as an important example of peaceful political compromise on core issues of power sharing.

We have a long way to go, and I won’t pretend this will be easy. Iraqis will need our help, and the help of their neighbors and the international community. But that help will come. I think it is becoming clear to the entire international community that success in Iraq is in everyone’s interest. And we are seeing results, whether in Iraqi debt relief, political support for the Governing Council, or increasing international involvement in reconstruction.

Real partnerships on Iraq, with Europe and other G-8 members, with regional states, and with the Iraqi people, will be hard to build, but immense in potential. It will have to be a two-way street, in which Americans also listen and adapt, which I know can sometimes seem like an unnatural act for us. But now is the moment to recognize what’s at stake in Iraq. The Iraqi people and we have our work cut out for us, but we’re pointed in a direction that can, and must, succeed. We simply cannot afford the alternative.

Supporting Economic Modernization and Democratic Change

The last, but surely not the least, element on our policy agenda, and intertwined with the other three, is the longer-term issue of supporting efforts from within the region aimed at democratic change and economic modernization. It is a fair criticism of U.S. efforts during the past 20 or more years to say that we have never paid adequate attention to the long-term importance of opening up some very stagnant political systems, especially in the Arab world. But now President Bush, in speeches during the past year, has talked about the urgent need for a “Forward Strategy for Freedom” to help bring fundamental reform to countries in the Greater Middle East.

In the aftermath of September 11, the United States has come to the fundamental realization that lagging reform has held back freedom and prosperity for millions of people, and has helped to produce the most serious security challenges we are now facing: terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the freedom deficit, political extremism, and radical Islam.

This is not just a matter of promoting American or Western values, or of ensuring basic human rights, crucial as both of those concerns are. It is also a matter of hardheaded American interests. Stability is not a static phenomenon, and political systems that do not find ways to gradually accommodate the aspirations of their people for participation will become brittle and combustible. And we are not along in thinking this. Many leaders in the political, academic, and economic spheres in the Middle East region have also come to the realization that reform is essential – and in their own best interests. We want to support that regional movement for change. The Greater Middle East initiative is designed to respond to the region’s needs and the region’s own ideas for reform. It is not a plan to be imposed from outside. Enduring democratic change and economic modernization must be driven from within Arab societies. The initiative has to be homegrown. So while we believe the impetus for reform must come from within the region, we also stand ready to assist those within the region who seek reformist change.

I know there are some who argue for a kind of Arab or Moslem exceptionalism regarding reform, but I simply don’t agree. Of course it’s true that Arab societies have more than their share of difficulties to work through, but that doesn’t mean that they are incapable of gradual democratic change. Assuming otherwise is both flawed analysis and a dangerous basis for policy. To put it simply, reform is essential for stability in the Greater Middle East. Reform is needed in order to expand political, economic, and educational opportunities throughout the region; lack of reform is a root cause of extremist violence.

But what is encouraging across much of the Greater Middle East today is the extent of self-examination underway, and the tangible steps that many countries are taking toward political and economic reform. The Arab Human Development Reports issued over the past two years bear eloquent testimony, from Arab thinkers themselves, about what needs to be done to ease serious deficits in political freedoms, economic openness, educational opportunity and women’s empowerment. The hard reality as we enter the 21st century is that countries that adapt, open up and seize the economic and political initiative will prosper; those that don’t will fall further and further behind.

From Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain, Arab leaders and emerging civil society groups are beginning to grasp – and act on – that hard truth. Iraq will be a crucial test for economic and political modernization, whose success over time will have far-reaching consequences. So will the course of events in Saudi Arabia and Egypt – two critically important partners for the United States. Both face enormous challenges. A series of terror attacks in Saudi Arabia are another horrible reminder of the utter ruthlessness of Al Qaeda, whose indiscriminate slaughter of innocent men, women and children reinforced the threat posed to all of us. The Saudis have responded aggressively. But importantly, Crown Prince Abdullah has made clear that these attacks will not deter his pursuit of domestic reforms, including opening up the economy and enhancing political participation.

In the last 30 years, a genuine partnership has also emerged between the United States and Egypt. It has been founded not on sentiment or imagined bonds, but on a bedrock of shared interests and aspirations. It has also had its share of setbacks and differences and mutual disappointments – but it would be a serious mistake to forget what it has meant for both of us, and for the hopes of the region.

There are many things that the United States, Europe, and others in the international community can do to help those in the Greater Middle East committed to creating new economic and political opportunities. President Bush has proposed a U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area within the coming decade. Our assistance programs are expanding throughout the Arab world, under the umbrella of Secretary Powell’s Middle East Partnership Initiative. As I have stressed, the initiative must ultimately come from within the region, but we are now trying to think creatively about what new structures for support we could organize. The Greater Middle East initiative is a platform for discussing these issues with our friends in the region and the international community.

Undersecretary Mark Grossman recently returned from a trip to the Morocco, Egypt, Bahrain and Jordan. The purpose of his trip was to listen, consult, and learn from people in the Middle East about how the U.S. can best support efforts for freedom. He heard regional opinions about the President’s Greater Middle East initiative, and had productive meetings with government official and civil society leaders. We are all listening closely to the view from the region. Undersecretary Grossman’s travel followed close on the heels of visits by other senior officials, including Undersecretary for Economic Affairs Alan Larson and Assistant Secretary Bill Burns. Secretary Powell has been discussing ideas with leaders from all over the region. President Bush wants us to support those who are pursuing reform in areas such as governance, education, and business; he does not want us to impose reform from the outside. That is the goal we are pursuing.

Ultimately, our success will be measured by whether we are able to achieve a partnership with the people of the region based on a common vision. To do this, we must be just as clear about what we stand for as what we stand against. We must convey a message of freedom, opportunity, and dignity to the region’s people. We must restore hope and confidence as the best antidote to chaos and extremism.

That certainly goes for Israelis and Palestinians, who after all are part of the region too. Hope and confidence are in short supply in Israel and the Palestinian Authority right now. But the prospect of reform, stimulated and nurtured from within the region, can only help to move the peace process forward. U.S. support for regional reform, however, is not a substitute for our continued engagement in the peace process. We remain strongly committed to working closely with both parties to realize President Bush’s vision of two states. But we must also be very clear that the process of reform in the Greater Middle East should not and must not be held hostage to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Overall economic and political reform in the region must be pursued in parallel with efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But we do need to recognize that each of issues we face in the region is connected to the others in increasingly important ways. Communications advances, technology, and modernization only strengthen those links. This is a great irony in a region known more for closed borders than open societies, but it should make us realize that we cannot afford a narrow view that sacrifices a broad vision for tactical advantage. Most important, we should be unafraid to look at old problems in new ways. It is my hope that the region’s people will lead us in that direction. And if that can happen, I think a better future is close at hand.

Thank you."

Israeli Spy Addresses Congress - Statement by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David M. Satterfield

2005-08-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

Statement by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State: "Statement by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David M. Satterfield Senate Foreign Relations Committee July 20, 2004 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m glad to have this timely opportunity tospeak with members of the Committee, as I was just in the region ten days ago. We are – once again – at a potential watershed moment in the Middle East peace process. We are seeing more activity and movement than we have seen for almost a year, as Israel refines its plan to withdraw from Gaza; and the Palestinians, along with the international community and regional partners such as Egypt, strive to ensure that this withdrawal leaves Gaza in a position to progress in an orderly fashion towards economic vitality, and security and political reform. Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of this Administration’s highest foreign policy priorities. Prime Minister Sharon’s plan to disengage from Gaza offers a real opportunity to restart the roadmap and move the parties towards realization of President Bush’s vision of two states, Israeli and Palestinian, living side by side in peace and security. For the first time ever, Israel is proposing to evacuate settlements from the West Bank and Gaza. It is an historic decision for Israel, and one President Bush fully supports. But it needs to be done in such a way that it is consistent with a process that leads to peace and security for Israel, and to a viable, contiguous, democratic state for the Palestinians. According to the disengagement plan, all settlements and certain military installations would be removed from Gaza, and four settlements would be removed from the northern West Bank. The Israeli Cabinet has approved this plan in principle. I don’t want to underestimate the domestic difficulties still facing Prime Minister Sharon: he is currently engaged in discussions to secure the political base necessary to proceed with disengagement.As-plans for Gaza disengagement move forward, the issue before the U.S., the Quartet, and the broader international community is how to prepare 1
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the Palestinians to take -the necessary steps to ensure a smooth and orderly transition in Gaza. We are engaged in intensive planning and discussion of practical matters of security, Palestinian political reform, and economic and humanitarian assistance. Security, of course, is the -number one issue that needs to be addressed. The Quartet envoys met with Palestinian Prime Minister Qurei two weeks ago, and stressed to him the need to take concrete action, particularly on security, in order to seize the opportunity presented by an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. In all honesty, I must tell you that there has been very little preparation or movement on the part of the Palestinian Authority to take these steps. But we will continue to push them, because as Israeli withdrawal from Gaza draws closer, it becomes increasingly vital that the PA be prepared to take over and maintain law and order and stability in Gaza. Egypt is working closely with both the Israelis and Palestinians in planning and preparing for Gaza withdrawal, particularly the difficult security aspects. Both sides have welcomed Egypt’s helpful role, and the United States and the Quartet have expressed full support as well. The Egyptians have been very clear with the Palestinians on their expectations for security reform, and have pushed them to take those steps quickly. Egypt has also committed to provide training and assistance, including on the ground in Gaza, to the restructured Palestinian security services. In addition to this, Egypt has worked closely with Israel on the critical questions of Gaza border security. We are pleased at the level of cooperation the two sides have shown, at both the political and operational levels, and the trend is definitely going in the right direction. While recent cooperation between the two sides has been good, there is much more that needs to be done. The Quartet envoys also met this month with international representatives of the Local Aid Coordination Committee and the Task Force on Palestinian Reform to discuss their continuing efforts to provide assistance and promote Palestinian reform; and preparations are underway for a meeting in September of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee of major donors to assess Palestinian Authority progress on reforms. Again, Palestinian progress in this area has been extremely slow, although there have been some notable successes in the areas of fiscal accountability and transparency, and in the implementation of a direct-deposit payment system2
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for all PA security service salaries. The PA has announced its intention tobegin municipal elections sometime before the end of the year, and the U.S., along with the Quartet, is ready to assist the PA in the preparations necessary to hold free and fair elections. We would like to see the established independent election commission play a role in organizing and regulating this election process. Given the continued desperate state of the Palestinian economy in Gaza and the West Bank, international aid efforts are crucial. The humanitarian plight of the Palestinian people is very real and has, in some cases, been exacerbated by the building of the Israeli separation barrier. Israel has the unquestioned right to defend itself; however we do have concerns when the construction of the barrier appears to prejudge final borders, leads to confiscating Palestinian property, or imposes further hardship on Palestinians. Israel itself is starting to address this issue: the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled last month that portions of the barrier’s route around Jerusalem must be altered to ameliorate the hardship it imposes on Palestinians. This ruling is binding on the Israeli government, unlike the recent International Court of Justice opinion that found Israel’s separation barrier to be illegal. We have said from the beginning that this referral to the ICJ was inappropriate and was likely only to impede efforts towards a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Our position on that has certainly not changed, and we are now eager to refocus attention where itshould be – on Gaza withdrawal and practical steps to reform the institutions of the Palestinian Authority. These are the types of efforts that will re-energize the peace process and get the roadmap back on track. It is true that the roadmap has been stalled, with neither party having fulfilled its commitments under Phase I. Most crucially, the Palestinian Authority has not put a stop to violence and terror. Without an end to brutal acts such as suicide bombings, there can be no progress towards peace. Israel also has obligations under the roadmap, and has promised to fulfill the commitments Prime Minister Sharon made to President Bush at Aqaba last year to dismantle unauthorized outposts and establish parameters for a freeze on new settlement construction. The Deputy National Security Advisor met with PM Sharon last week in Israel, and Sharon reiterated his determination to dismantle unauthorized outposts and take steps to ease the humanitarian situation of the Palestinian population. 3
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Gaza disengagement, rather than the roadmap per se, has been the focus of attention since the beginning of the year. Disengagement indeed offers a real opportunity to make progress in the seemingly endless quest for peace in the Middle East. However, it is also an opportunity to move back to a political process. Israeli disengagement from Gaza, done properly and with appropriate support from the international community, has the potential to move both parties to the conflict closer to realization of the ultimate goal to which the roadmap is a path: two states, living side by side in peace and security. Thank you. I’ll be happy to take your questions. 4"

ZOA - June 16, 2003 - Early Attempts to Provide Israeli Spy David Satterfield With Cover

2005-08-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Zionist Organization of America - June 16, 2003 - David Satterfield, Senior Member Of U.S. Monitoring Unit In Mideast, Has Justified Some Arab Terrorism: "The Zionist Organization of America
Jacob & Libby Goodman ZOA House Phone: 212-481-1500
4 East 34th St. New York, NY 10016 Fax: 212-481-1515
e-mail: email@zoa.org Web Site: www.zoa.org

June 16, 2003 Contact: (212-481-1500)

David Satterfield, Senior Member Of U.S. Monitoring
Unit In Mideast, Has Justified Some Arab Terrorism

NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed concern over the fact that one of the leaders of the U.S. monitoring group sent to oversee implementation of President Bush's "Road Map" plan, has justified some acts of Arab terrorism against Israel.

Deputy Undersecretary of State David Satterfield, who has arrived in as one of the leaders of the monitoring team, made his controversial statements while touring southern Lebanon in December 1998. He was asked by reporters about attacks launched by Hezbollah against Israel. (Hezbollah is on the U.S. list of terrorist groups; its attacks include the 1983 car-bomb massacre of 241 Marines in Lebanon.) According to the Arab newspaper Al-Nahar (Dec. 4, 1998), he replied: "We make a distinction between resistance and terror. We don't think that this resistance is terrorism."

When a correspondent for the Journal of Counterterrorism asked the State Department for its response, a spokesman "refused to answer whether Satterfield's comments were in line with State Department policy or not." He did not deny that Satterfield made the statement. (Vol.6, No.2, p.26)

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: "David Satterfield's record raises troubling questions about his ability to remain fair and impartial. Will he acknowledge Palestinian Arab violations of the Road Map, or will he follow the traditional State Department approach of whitewashing such violations in order to 'advance the negotiating process'? Will he ignore some terrorist attacks on the grounds that they are 'legitimate resistance'?"

The ZOA notes that the Palestinian Authority claims that Palestinian Arab attacks against Israelis are "resistance, not terrorism" and therefore justified. PA Minister of Information Nabil Amr said (Doha Al-Jazira Television, June 14, 2003): "As regards the word terrorism, I do not know why when the Palestinians denounce the word terrorism, certain people think that this means resistance. There is no text anywhere that says that the Palestinian people's resistance is terrorism, which we denounce...Yes, we denounce terrorism. Anyone who says that denouncing terrorism means denouncing resistance is doing an injustice to legitimate resistance and is in effect labeling it with terrorism."

Abu Mazen, in his first press conference (Doha Al-Jazira Television, June 3, 2003), was asked about his previous statements suggesting a temporary halt to some types of terrorist attacks. He replied: "We called for ending the militarization of the intifada. Nobody can prevent people from expressing the popular stand through peaceful means, as was the case in the first intifada." That "peaceful intifada" actually included thousands of firebomb attacks, stabbings, and stonings; steering a bus into a ravine off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, murdering 16 people (including an American woman, attorney Rita Levine of Philadelphia) [July 1989]; hijacking a Beersheba bus and murdering 3 passengers [March 1988]; grenade attack on the Haifa mall, wounding 25 people. [August 1988]

* * *
The Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver."

Israeli Spy David M. Satterfield Addresses the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives

2005-08-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives: "Committee on International Relations
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515-0128

Statement by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs
David M. Satterfield
House International Relations Committee
May 5, 2004

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Water is a topic of great importance in the Middle East, and the United States has long recognized the key role water plays in relations between Middle East neighbors and in economic development of their societies. Since the October 1991 Madrid conference, water has been an integral part of the peace process, and the United States has worked continuously with parties in the region and members of the international donor community on a wide range of water issues. Over the years, the work the regional parties have done together on water, both among themselves and with the support and participation of the international community, continues to demonstrate that the old adage about the next war in the Middle East being over water is not a given. Rather, our experience in the Middle East clearly illustrates that water can be a positive force for cooperation and does not have to be a negative force resulting in conflict.

Before expanding on these thoughts, I would like to briefly discuss the general water situation in the region. Then I will spend a few minutes describing in more detail how water fits into the peace process, including the ongoing cooperation in the multilateral track of the process. And finally, I would like to comment on the future of water and cooperation in the region.

Water in the Jordan River Basin
As established at the Madrid conference, the core parties to the peace process are Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, and Lebanon. From a water resources perspective, then, the focus is on the Jordan River Basin. In the Middle East generally, and the Jordan basin specifically, the climate is semi-arid to arid, with all the limitations on water availability such a climate implies. In many respects, the water resources situations in the Jordan basin and the western United States are similar. In addition to not receiving adequate quantities of precipitation generally, the temporal and spatial variability of rainfall in both the Jordan basin and western United States make managing water resources quite complicated and difficult. In the Jordan basin, it rains only in the winter, with the rainy season spanning from approximately November through March. No rain falls at all during the summer months when demand for water is the highest. In addition to dramatic seasonal variations, annual variations in total rainfall are equally dramatic. The cycle of several years of drought followed by one or two years of good rainfall that is so common in the western United States is also the norm in the Jordan basin. The Jordan basin is just coming off two relatively wet winters (2002-2003 and 2003-2004). However, the previous three winters – 1999-2000, 2000-2001, and 2001-2002 – were very dry, and all governments instituted cuts in water allocations, especially to agriculture, in response to the drought conditions. In addition to temporal variability, the spatial variability in rainfall further complicates water management. Rainfall is highest in the northern Jordan basin, and decreases steadily as you go south. However, most water consumers live in central and southern parts of the basin. Thus, water must be moved from where it falls to where it is consumed.

As suggested above, the people in Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank and Gaza live in a constant state of water scarcity. A widely used rule of thumb is that a population is considered to be in a state of “water stress” if the average annual per capita availability of water is below 1,000 cubic meters. Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian average annual per capita availabilities are all significantly below that level. Israel, which has the most advanced water infrastructure and water management capabilities in the region, has an average annual availability of only some 250-300 cubic meters per capita. Jordan, at some 170-200 cubic meters per capita, and the Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza, at some 70-90 cubic meters per capita, are under even greater water stress. By comparison, average annual water availability in the United States is on the order of 7,000 cubic meters per capita.

Most of the naturally occurring water resources available to Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians are already being utilized. With population growth and further economic development, in the future those water resources will come under increasing stress. Since the mid-1990’s, the United States, through its bilateral foreign aid programs, has provided substantial assistance to the Jordanians and Palestinians in the water sector. Through our support for major water infrastructure projects and projects designed to enhance the water authorities’ capabilities for improved water management, we have helped the parties make better use of their water resources. My USAID colleague Jim Kunder will provide more details on those programs.

Water in the Middle East Peace Process
Water has been discussed in a variety of fora in the peace process. In the bilateral track, where Israel has negotiated bilaterally with its Arab neighbors, negotiations on the broad spectrum of “political” issues, including those related to water, have taken place. The various agreements that have been concluded to date have arisen out of these negotiations. The October 1994 Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace (Article 6 and Annex II) contains an extensive discussion of water issues of common interest to both countries. Through the work of the standing Israel-Jordan Joint Water Committee that was established under the treaty, the two countries have been implementing the treaty’s various water provisions over the last ten years. Similarly, the Israelis and Palestinians have been working together through an Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee on water issues that were addressed in Article 40 of their September 1995 Interim Agreement. The United States has assisted the parties in implementation of their agreements, when requested. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement, the agreement established a formal U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli Trilateral Water Working Group to assist with implementation of the agreement’s water provisions. The trilateral group has met regularly over the last 9 years. In the case of the Israel-Jordan treaty, though no formal trilateral mechanism was established, we have regular discussions with Israeli and Jordanian water officials concerning implementation of the treaty’s water provisions. Any future Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Lebanese treaties, as well as any Israeli-Palestinian permanent status agreement, also will contain substantial water provisions.

In addition to the bilateral track of the process, in early 1992, the United States and Russia, as co-sponsors of the peace process, established what is known as the multilateral track of the peace process. As constituted at that time, the multilateral track consisted of five working groups focusing on: water resources; the environment; refugees; regional economic development; and arms control and regional security. The multilateral track was designed to: 1) support the bilateral track of the peace process; 2) bring regional parties together to explore practical, technical solutions to key regional problems; and 3) build confidence among the parties to create a dynamic that reinforces cooperation and peace. Unlike the bilateral negotiations that involve only Israel and its four immediate neighbors, in the multilateral negotiations, we broadened participation to include a total of fifteen regional delegations and 34 non-regional delegations. The Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources’ agenda included the following four topics under which activities were conducted: 1) enhancing water data availability; 2) principles of water management, including conservation; 3) enhancing water supply; and 4) principles of regional cooperation. In the early days of the working group, our initial efforts were modest, as it took time for the regional participants to adjust to and become comfortable with the idea of cooperating together. Over time, the group developed larger projects, several of which have continued to this day.

Before briefly describing the current projects, let me say a few words about the multilateral process itself. Through 1996, each of the multilateral working groups met regularly in plenary session. Individual project activities took place on a regular and frequent basis between plenary meetings. While the project work was kept focused on technical issues, holding the plenary meetings was more closely tied to the political climate in the region. In late 1996, the political situation took a downturn, the bilateral negotiations slowed, and we had to stop holding plenary sessions of the working groups. Unfortunately, we have not been able hold any plenary sessions since that time. Despite the lack of any plenary meetings of the Working Group on Water Resources since 1996, projects initiated by the working group have remained active and productive. Projects have continued first and foremost because the regional participants – the projects focus mostly on the needs of the Jordanians, Israelis, and Palestinians – have decided the projects are too important to allow them to stop. And the United States and other donors have agreed it is important for the projects to continue and so have continued to support the projects.

The three main water projects currently active are: 1) the Regional Water Data Banks project; 2) a Public Awareness project; and 3) the Middle East Desalination Research Center.

In the Regional Water Data Banks project, Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian water officials – supported by the United States, the European Commission, France, and the Netherlands – work together to increase their capabilities to gather, store, and analyze a wide range of water data. The issue of sharing water data is considered political, and thus, the project does not directly address sharing data. Rather, the project focuses on technical aspects of water data, with the objective of giving the regional parties the technical tools they need to share data that are meaningful, whenever the political decision to share data is made. In the early days of this project, as with most other working group projects, most ideas for project activities came from donors. Over time, the regional parties have taken on more responsibility for guiding the project. Now, the Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians meet among themselves regularly to discuss and agree on the direction for the project and new activities they want to propose to the donors.

At the beginning of the Public Awareness project, the Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli participants agreed the project should focus on increasing the awareness of water issues among children in the region, since that segment of the populations will be the decision makers of tomorrow. With U.S. support, the parties have produced: a) a public awareness video targeting children emphasizing the scarce nature of water in the Middle East and the need to use water wisely; and b) more recently, a student resource book on water (in Arabic, Hebrew, and English versions), which the parties have introduced on a pilot basis into a small number of their schools. The latest project activity just now starting keeps the focus on schools and will design and install rain harvesting systems in select schools. Teachers and students will use these systems for instructional purposes, and, in addition, the systems will provide additional water for the schools’ use.

The Middle East Desalination Research Center, which has its headquarters in Muscat, Oman, has been operating since 1997. The United States, Oman, Israel, Japan, Korea, and the European Commission have provided support to the Center. The Working Group established the Center in recognition of the fact that although most of the world’s desalinated water production is in the Middle East, most of the expertise and technological capacity resides elsewhere. The Working Group agreed that the Middle East will need to make greater use of desalination in the future but that the cost of desalination will have to come down for its use to become more widespread. All the Center’s activities – the training programs, the outreach and information sharing programs, and the cooperative research program – are designed to increase desalination expertise in the Middle East and to help address the issue of cost reduction.
In addition to projects mentioned above, I should mention two other programs where the United States also has supported regional water-related activities. Under the Multilateral Working Group on the Environment, we have supported a number of activities on the important issue of wastewater treatment and reuse. Also, USAID’s Middle East Regional Cooperation (MERC) Program, which is not part of the peace process per se but which funds cooperative research projects between Israeli and Arab scientists, has supported a variety of water projects.

To sum up the multilaterals, the model for cooperation incorporated in the multilateral peace process is based on the premise that it is possible to create synergies through awareness of common problems, such as water. By focusing on problems related to regional water scarcity, the participants in the process have been able to transcend the realm of competing interests and create a situation in which all parties share benefits. Because the multilateral water working group has kept its work focused on technical issues (while leaving the “political” water issues to the bilateral track), the regional projects developed by the Working Group on Water Resources have been able to withstand the vagaries of the political process. The robustness and success of this approach is most clearly demonstrated by the fact that during the last three and a half years of violence and instability in the region due to the Intifada, during which time political negotiations have largely been in abeyance, Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian water officials and experts continue to work together on a range of regional water projects.

The Future of Water and Cooperation
To date, the multilateral water projects have focused on capacity building and technical assistance efforts, as described above. One reason is that the financial resources donors have available for regional activities are generally limited. For the United States, we have been able to provide on the order of $1-2 million per year for the regional water projects we support. However, despite these relatively modest efforts, the importance of the cooperative efforts on water the Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians have undertaken with our support (and that of other donors) should not be under estimated. The parties have told us repeatedly that the projects provide them with important practical benefits, and they have urged us to continue our support. We have assured the parties that as long as they continue to want to work together, we will continue to work with them.

As good and productive as the multilateral water projects have been, since the projects are technical in nature, we cannot expect them to resolve the broader political aspects of water. Thus, only when the Palestinians and Israelis get back to the bilateral negotiating table will it be possible for them to come to agreement on their outstanding political water issues such as water allocations. However, even though they do not directly address the bilateral water issues, the multilateral water projects do provide important technical assistance that will be helpful to the parties whenever they do get back to the negotiating table. Additionally, in the interim, the regional water projects help to maintain open channels of communications between the parties, which should also help facilitate the restart of the bilateral water negotiations.

There is another class of regional water projects I would like to mention. Over the years there have been numerous ideas for large scale regional water infrastructure projects whose objectives would be to generate significant quantities of additional water – on the order of 800 million to 1 billion cubic meters per year – to meet the water needs of the Palestinians, Jordanians, and Israelis. These ideas have included: 1) large scale desalination facilities on the Mediterranean coast; 2) large scale importation of water from Turkey via pipeline or canal; and 3) the Red-Dead conveyance project. While such projects might in principle be able to help alleviate water shortages in the region, there are a number of reasons why none of these projects have progressed very far. First, these projects would be very expensive, costing anywhere between $2 to 5 billion or so. Second, by their very nature, these kinds of projects take on a more “political” character, as they can raise political concerns among parties that have not yet concluded peace agreements. And third, there are many outstanding issues related to some of these projects, including environmental concerns and questions of economic viability.

Let me say a few words about the Red-Dead conveyance project, since it is an idea currently being discussed. The project is designed to move Red Sea water from the Gulf of Aqaba through a pipeline/canal conveyance approximately 180 kilometers to the Dead Sea. Since the Dead Sea is some 410 meters below sea level and the Gulf of Aqaba is at sea level, water dropping through that 410 meters of elevation can be used to generate hydropower, and the power can be used to desalinate a portion of the Red Sea water. The project as currently envisioned would generate 850 million cubic meters of desalinated water a year for use by Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. In addition, a portion of the Red Sea water would flow directly into the Dead Sea, so that the level of the Dead Sea, which has been dropping almost 1 meter per year for the last thirty years or so, could be controlled. Proponents of the project argue that this project would reverse the negative environmental impacts produced by the continual lowering of the level of the Dead Sea.

The scale of the Red-Dead project is large, to say the least. If the envisioned desalination capacity were realized, the resulting desalination facility would be 5-6 times larger than the world’s largest desalination facility currently in operation. And there are many crucial questions about the project that remain unanswered, such as: 1) will the introduction of Red Sea water into the Dead Sea have a major negative impact on the chemistry of the Dead Sea water?; 2) while introducing Red Sea water into the Dead Sea to control the level of the Dead Sea may alleviate some environment problems, will such introduction cause other negative environmental impacts?; 3) what will the environmental effects at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba be, where the Red Sea water will be siphoned into the project?; and 4) will the cost of the desalinated water delivered to customers in Amman or other population centers be too expensive for consumers?

Given the scale of the Red-Dead project and the outstanding issues surrounding it, the State Department has not taken a position on whether the project could or should be pursued. Rather, in our discussions with the Jordanians, Israelis, and Palestinians, we have told them that if they want to work together to explore this project idea in more detail, and if they can agree on how they will work together, we would be willing to work with them, if they so desire. Since last year, the parties have been discussing a terms of reference for a project feasibility study. However, up until now, they have not come to final agreement on a T.O.R., largely because of some Israeli and Palestinian political concerns.

In closing, I hope my discussion has demonstrated that water cooperation among the Jordanians, Palestinians, and Israelis is an active and ongoing pursuit, which takes place through a number of mechanisms. The governments in the region have recognized that they must continue to cooperate in order to be able to provide water for their people, regardless of the political situation in the region. And the United States, as it has done for so many years, will continue to work with the parties to facilitate their cooperation, and we will continue to encourage the international donor community to do so as well."

Thousands Protest Israeli Spy David Satterfield - Lebanon Vist Tied To Mysterious Assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri

2005-08-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

IRIB PERSIAN NEWS PAGE: "Lebanese students protest at US

03:49:34 È.Ù
Awkar, Lebanon, March 31 - Around 3,000 people demonstrated Wednesday against US meddling in Lebanon's political crisis since the assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri.

"Satterfield out, the government is our business," shouted the demonstrators, referring to US deputy assistant secretary of state David Satterfield, who left Lebanon earlier in the day after a week-long visit.
Prime Minister Omar Karami, who resigned after Hariri's assassination on February 14 but later returned on a caretaker basis, has said he plans to resign due to the opposition's refusal to form a national unity government.

The rally organised by the Shiite movement Hezbollah, was held outside the heavily guarded US embassy in Awkar, on the coast north of the capital.

A cordon of police and soldiers as well as civil defence members equipped with water cannons kept the demonstrators some 800 metres (yards) away on the road leading up to the mission.

"Zionists govern the US, not the US," read a banner amid a sea of red-and-white Lebanese flags, as Abdullah Qassir, a Hezbollah MP, condemned US interference in Lebanon.

The mostly young demonstrators tore up and trampled a cartoon portrait of US President George W. Bush as well as copies of the US and Israeli flags.

Others carried portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sitting alongside Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, as the protest passed without incident."

US Ambassador (and Israeli Spy) David Satterfield to Talk on Arab-Israeli Peace

2005-08-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

School of International Studies: "US Ambassador David Satterfield to Talk on Arab-Israeli Peace

Ambassador David Satterfield, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, gave his lecture, “In Pursuit of Arab-Israeli Peace,” on October 9, 2003, as part of the Global Briefing series. The briefing took place in the Wes Watkins Center Auditorium from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a reception following.

Satterfield assumed the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary June 25, 2001. From September 1998 to June 2001, he served as the US Ambassador to Lebanon.

A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Satterfield has worked in Jeddah, Tunis, Beirut and Damascus. In addition to several other State Department assignments in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, he was Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff from 1990 to 1993.

Satterfield also served on the National Security Council staff from 1993 to 1996 as Director for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and later as Director of the Department of State’s Office of Israel and Arab-Israeli Affairs.

The Ambassador also received several Department of State Superior Honor Awards for his work on the Middle East peace process.

Satterfield was born in Baltimore, Maryland and attended the University of Maryland and Georgetown University"

JTA NEWS: David Satterfield Spied For Israel Through AIPAC

2005-08-18T18:51:00.000-07:00

JTA NEWS: "

BEHIND THE HEADLINES
New revelations in AIPAC case
raise questions about FBI motives
By Matthew E. Berger
August 18, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 (JTA) — New revelations in the case against two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee staffers raise questions about why FBI investigators have been focused on the pro-Israel lobby.
The New York Times reported Thursday that David Satterfield, the No. 2 man at the U.S. mission in Baghdad, was one of two government officials who allegedly gave classified information to Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former director of foreign policy issues, but he wasn’t named in the indictment handed down against Rosen and two others earlier this month.

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Satterfield allegedly spoke with Rosen on several occasions in 2002 — when Satterfield was the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs — and shared classified information. At one point, Rosen allegedly relayed the secret information in a memorandum to other AIPAC staffers.

The fact that Satterfield is not a target of the case and was allowed to take a sensitive position in Iraq has raised questions about the severity of the information allegedly given to AIPAC officials, as well as about the government’s motives for targeting Rosen and Keith Weissman, a former AIPAC Iran analyst, neither of whom had classified access.

The defendants and AIPAC supporters see the new revelations as evidence that federal prosecutors are targeting the powerful pro-Israel lobby for simply conducting the normal Washington practice of trading sensitive information. Officials inside and outside government privately acknowledge that classified information routinely changes hands among influential people in the foreign policy community and that the exchanges often are advantageous to diplomats.

“If, in fact, Satterfield passed on classified information that other people should not have had, then they should all be guilty of the same thing,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “The fact that Satterfield hasn’t been prosecuted suggests that’s not the case.”

Rosen and Weissman both pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a charge of conspiracy to communicate national defense information. Rosen also is charged with communicating national defense information to people not entitled to receive it.

Larry Franklin, a Pentagon Iran analyst, has been charged with five similar counts, including conspiracy to communicate classified information to a foreign agent. Franklin, who also pleaded not guilty, is accused of passing classified information to Rosen and Weissman from 2002 through last year.

Observers say the case is likely to create a chill among lobbyists and others who seek to garner foreign-policy information from the government.

The second U.S. government official, who allegedly met with Rosen and Weissman in 2000, remains anonymous but reportedly has left government service. Their identification is seen as central to the government’s case that the AIPAC staffers followed a pattern of seeking classified information and disseminating it to journalists and officials at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. A spokeswoman for Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, would not comment.

Attorneys for Rosen and Weissman, who are collaborating on their defense, will likely use the same information to show that sharing documents and other information was normal practice between government officials and AIPAC.

Leaders of other pro-Israel groups say State Department and other government aides handling the Middle East portfolio frequently share information.

“When we discuss issues, it’s an exchange. It’s not one-sided,” Hoenlein said. “What people forget is they benefit from these exchanges too, because they learn things from us.”

Those who have worked with Rosen say a large part of his task was capturing sensitive material and that numerous government officials aided his pursuits over the years.

Tom Dine, a former AIPAC executive director, said Rosen had claimed in a 1983 memo, shortly after joining the pro-Israel lobby, that he received a classified review of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Dine, who recently left his post as president of Radio Free Europe to head the San Francisco Jewish federation, told the New York Jewish Week that he was shown the document by FBI investigators.

“Everybody knew that Steve was quite capable of luring important information, which was exceedingly useful to the mission of the office,” said Neal Sher, another former AIPAC executive director. “It was understood by the people in the organization, both professional and lay.”

But they say Rosen’s work mirrored what was being done throughout Washington.

“The trafficking in sensitive information, some of which might have been classified, is the norm in many instances,” said Sher, a former federal prosecutor. “While I don’t recall ever being specifically told that info they passed on to me was classified, I would not have been shocked if that was done.”

A spokesman for AIPAC denied any wrongdoing by the organization.

“AIPAC does not seek, use or request anything but legally obtained information as part of its work,” Patrick Dorton said. “All AIPAC employees are expected and required to uphold this standard.”

Satterfield is not considered a subject of the government’s probe, and he reportedly was cleared by the Justice Department for his Iraq post.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

“I will say, though, that David Satterfield is an outstanding public servant, he is a distinguished Foreign Service officer and diplomat, and that he has worked on behalf of the American people for a number of years,” McCormack said Thursday.

A State Department official said it was within Satterfield’s portfolio to work with policy groups such as AIPAC. As the deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, Satterfield led the State Department group dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as other regional issues on AIPAC’s agenda.

“It wasn’t out of the normal at all for a deputy assistant secretary, as he was, to be meeting with AIPAC on a regular basis,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Our office tries to meet with interested people of all groups, and it’s supposed to be an informational exchange.”

© JTA. Reproduction of material without written permission is strictly prohibited."

Israeli Spy David Satterfield: Israel Should Cease Settlement Activities, Reconsider Wall

2005-08-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

INTERNATIONAL PRESS CENTER-PALESTINE: "Satterfield: Israel Should Cease Settlement Activities, Reconsider Wall

GAZA, January 13, 2004 (IPC + Agencies)-- The United States Deputy Under Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, David Satterfield, said on Monday that Israel should halt construction of settlements and reconsider the construction of the wall (Apartheid Wall) it is building on Palestinian-owned lands in the West Bank.

Speaking at a conference on the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in Washington, Satterfield called on the Israelis to stop construction of settlements on the occupied Palestinian territories and criticized the Apartheid Wall, being built around and through West Bank cities, towns, villages and refugee camps.

He explained that “Israel’s friends believe that settlement activities must come to an end for they harm interests of both Israelis and Palestinians.”

The U.S official expressed appreciation for the individual political initiatives launched unofficially by Israelis and Palestinians, particularity the recent Geneva Accord and Nosaiba-Ayalon Document.

Both Jewish settlements and the Apartheid wall being built by Israel on Palestinian-owned lands have created demographic and geographic problems for the Palestinian population in West Bank and Gaza Strip, affecting the future Palestinian state, proclaimed by the US-sponsored "Road Map" peace plan."

Jewish Times: AIPAC Spies Appear in Court

2005-08-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

National News: "Ex-AIPAC Staffers Fight Charges

Matthew E. Berger
Special to the Jewish Times

AUGUST 16, 2005
Alexandria, Va.

Two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are accused of conspiring to trade classified information are working together to fight the charges.

Steve Rosen, AIPAC's former director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, a former Iran analyst, have signed a joint defense agreement to >collaborate on their arguments against the charges, according to sources >close to the defense.

The agreement suggests that Rosen and Weissman will have similar defense strategies and will not implicate each other.

In their first court appearance, Rosen and Weissman plead not guilty to the charges. Appearing stoic, the two men briefly addressed the judge, agreeing to waive their right to a speedy trial.

Both men were told to surrender their passports and were released without bail.

Judge T. S. Ellis III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia set a trial date for Jan. 3, 2006. He did so expressing concern that the attorneys were seeking so much time to view classified material relevant to the case.

In a foreshadowing of their defense, the attorneys for both men suggested they would seek to suppress evidence obtained during searches of AIPAC's offices last year and request an explanation for why prosecutors waited so long to indict the men, who have been under FBI surveillance since at least 1999.

Larry Franklin, the former Pentagon aide accused of giving the AIPAC staffers the sensitive material, returned to court as well. Seated next to Rosen, Franklin maintained his not guilty plea from a previous indictment.

Rosen and Weissman are accused of receiving classified information from Franklin and two other, unnamed U.S. government officials and passing the information to three officials at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. The Israeli officials include Naor Gilon, a former political officer who returned to Israel in August. Rosen and Weissman are also accused of giving the information to reporters.

All three are charged with one count of conspiracy to communicate national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, punishable by 10 years in prison. Rosen and Franklin are also charged with communicating national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, also punishable by 10 years in prison.

Franklin is charged with two additional counts of communicating national defense information and one count of conspiracy to communicate classified information to an agent of a foreign government, which carries a five-year prison sentence.

Attorneys for Rosen and Weissman made separate pretrial requests to the judge, but they are working together in preparing a defense, sources said.

Rosen and his attorney, Abbe Lowell, consulted at length with Weissman and his counsel, John Nassikas, before court began.

AIPAC, which has not been targeted in the probe, continues to pay the legal fees for both former employees, who were fired in April as the investigation intensified.

Franklin is not a party to the joint defense agreement, sources said.

Joint defense agreements are signed between defendants to allow consultation and information sharing between attorneys without violating the attorney-client privilege, according to legal experts.

Both defendants and their attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.

A spokesman for AIPAC, Patrick Dorton, also refused to comment about the searches of AIPAC's offices, which occurred in August and December of last year.

But Lowell suggested in court that the defense would request an evidentiary hearing on the matter.

Franklin, whose case was originally to be heard in September, is now scheduled to be tried with Rosen and Weissman.

But Plato Cacheris, Franklin's attorney, said outside the courtroom that he was contemplating seeking a separate trial for his client. Lowell suggested Rosen and Weissman's team may seek severance from Franklin's case as well.

Severances are rarely granted in conspiracy cases, legal experts said, but often requested. Denied severance requests are often used as a basis for appeal if a defendant is found guilty.

Much of the hearing focused on setting dates for motions and other matters, as well as requests from the defendants' attorneys to see classified information pertinent to the case.

Kevin DiGregory, the assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of

Virginia, said much of the classified information Rosen and Weissman's attorneys need access to relate to five documents, but he did not elaborate.

But, he added, because of the nature of the investigation and the manner in which it obtained its evidence, significant amounts of classified material will need to be turned over to the defendants for review.

At the hearing, both Weissman and Rosen sought and received permission to leave the Washington area. Weissman asked to visit his mother in New York and tour prospective colleges with his daughter. Rosen asked to visit his son in Madison, Wis., and travel throughout the Northeast for consulting work. He did not specify what kind of consulting he was doing.

This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency."

Jerusalem Post | Former AIPAC officials plead not guilty in secrets case

2005-08-17T05:41:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "Aug. 17, 2005 1:23 | Updated Aug. 17, 2005 6:20
Former AIPAC officials plead not guilty in secrets case
By NATHAN GUTTMAN
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia

Two former officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, pleaded not guilty in district court here yesterday to charges of unlawfully receiving classified defense information.

In their first court appearance, Rosen and Weissman sat on the defendant's bench next to Larry Franklin, the third codefendant, who allegedly passed them classified information dealing with Iran and with threats to Israeli operatives in northern Iraq.

Judge T.S. Ellis set the trial date for January 3 after all three waived their right to a speedy trial process.

Ellis made clear that he did not wish to postpone the trial any longer and set several dates for hearing motions concerning the case during October.

Rosen and Weissman were released on $100,000 bail each and were ordered to surrender their passports to their lawyers. They will not be allowed to travel outside the Washington area without prior consent from the court.

Rosen, former policy director at AIPAC, and Weissman, its Iran specialist, are accused of receiving classified information from Larry Franklin, a mid-level analyst in the Iran desk of the Pentagon, over the past four years. The federal indictment details contacts, monitored by FBI surveillance teams, in which Franklin transferred classified defense information to the two.

US Attorney Kevin DiGregory told the court that the classified information passed on by Franklin related to five separate documents that would be part of the evidence presented.

Rosen and Weissman were fired from AIPAC several months ago, following FBI allegations they were aware of the fact that the information they received from Franklin was classified. The indictment also alleged that they passed on classified information to officials in the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

The Department of Justice has expressed interest in interviewing some of the Israeli diplomats who were in touch with the Franklin and with the two AIPAC officials. They were not mentioned by name in the indictment, but sources close to the case said that the main contact person for Franklin in the embassy was Naor Gilon, the former political officer. The other two officials mentioned in the indictment are Ambassador Danny Ayalon and Rafi Barak, the former deputy chief of mission."

National News

2005-08-11T05:26:00.000-07:00

National News: "Two Ex-AIPAC Staffers Indicted

Ron Kampeas and Matthew E. Berger
Special to the Jewish Times

AUGUST 11, 2005
Alexandria, Va.

The indictment of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee suggests that the government wants to prove an extensive pattern of trading classified information.

Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for eastern Virginia who handed down the indictment here Aug. 4, decisively counted out the pro-Israel lobby as a target in the inquiry.

Still, the broad scope of the charges -- stretching back more years and covering a broader array of U.S. and Israeli officials than was previously known -- is sure to send a chill through Washington's lobbying community.

The indictment charges Steve Rosen, AIPAC's former policy director, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, with "conspiracy to communicate national defense information to people not entitled to receive it," which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Rosen is also charged with actual communication of national defense information, also punishable by 10 years in prison.

The charges against the former AIPAC staffers do not rise to the level of espionage, which the defendants and their supporters had feared.

Weissman and Rosen are expected to appear in an Alexandria, Va., federal court on Aug. 16.

Attorneys for Rosen and Weissman expressed confidence that they would handily beat the charges.

"The charges in the indictment announced today are entirely unjustified," said a statement from Rosen's attorney, Abbe Lowell.

"For 23 years, Dr. Steve Rosen has been a passionate advocate for America's national interests in the Middle East. He regrets that the government has moved ahead with this indictment but looks forward to being vindicated at trial."

Weissman's lawyer, John Nassikas, said he looked forward to challenging the charges "vigorously in court."

AIPAC announced last Friday that it had hired former Justice Department officials who now work for Howrey LLP, a major Washington-based law firm that consults with organizations engaged in lobbying, to review its lobbying practices.

"The conduct of Rosen and Weissman was clearly not part of their job," an AIPAC official said. "However, we made a decision that the events of the last year warranted an internal review of policies and procedures related to information collection and dissemination."

"The goal is to ensure that nothing like this can ever happen again," the official said.

Previously disclosed government documents have focused only on activity dating back to 2003. Those documents outlined interactions with only one midlevel government official, former Pentagon Iran analyst Larry Franklin, who has already been indicted in the case, and one Israeli diplomat, political officer Naor Gilon, who ended a three-year tour of duty in early August.

The indictment lists charges involving incidents dating back to 1999, four years before the AIPAC staffers met Franklin. The charges are related to information on Iran and terrorist attacks in Central Asia and Saudi Arabia that was allegedly exchanged with three U.S. government officials and three staffers at Israel's Embassy in Washington.

A source close to the defense said one of the U.S. officials involved, who has not been indicted, was recently appointed to a senior Bush administration post. The source, who asked not to be identified, would not name the official.

The indictment for the first time acknowledges that the FBI used Franklin in a sting operation against Rosen and Weissman. It includes five charges against Franklin in addition to those against the two former AIPAC staffers.

In indicting all three with "conspiracy to communicate national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it," McNulty made it clear that the target was much broader: those in Washington who trade in classified information.

"Those entrusted with safeguarding our nation's secrets must remain faithful to that trust," McNulty said. "Those not authorized to receive classified information must resist the temptation to acquire it, no matter what their motivation may be."

The charges against the two former AIPAC staffers do not rise to the level of the crime committed by Jonathan Pollard, who plead guilty in 1986 to spying for Israel. Pollard plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government, which is punishable by life imprisonment.

The indictment against Rosen and Weissman does not anywhere allege that Israeli officials ever solicited the information, nor does it say that Israel compensated them for the information.

McNulty suggested he would argue that the intent was critical. He described Franklin, Rosen and Weissman as "individuals who put their own interests and views of American foreign policy ahead of America's national security."

Lowell, Rosen's attorney, described the charges as a "misguided attempt to criminalize the public's right to participate in the political process."

The indictment includes a laundry list of contacts Rosen and Weissman had with U.S. government officials and Israeli Embassy officials.

It notes that Rosen had security clearance when he was an official at the Pentagon-allied Rand Corporation think tank in the late 1970s and early 1980s, apparently to underscore that Rosen would have known the implications of receiving classified information.

The indictment also lists conversations Rosen allegedly had with an Israeli diplomat in 1999 about terrorist acts in Central Asia that Rosen allegedly described as "an extremely sensitive piece of intelligence." It does not name the official.

Also outlined is a conversation that Weissman had in 1999 with the same official about a 1996 attack on U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, in which Weissman discussed what he allegedly called a "secret FBI, classified FBI report."

In 2000, the indictment alleges, Rosen relayed classified information from a U.S. government official to the media. The information, according to the indictment, concerned U.S. strategy in the Middle East.

In 2002, Rosen relayed information about the terrorist group Al-Qaida from another government official -- the official a defense source says was recently promoted to a senior government position -- to other AIPAC officials, the indictment alleges.

In March 2003, Rosen and Weissman allegedly received classified information from Franklin on U.S. policy on Iran and relayed it to another Israeli diplomat. He also allegedly disclosed the information to a "senior fellow at a Washington, D.C., think tank" and to the media, the indictment said.

In June of the same year, Franklin allegedly relayed to Weissman and Rosen classified information about Iranian activity in Iraq, newly occupied by a U.S.-led force.

By July 2004, the indictment said, the government had co-opted Franklin and used him to set up Weissman and Rosen in a sting.

In that operation, Franklin allegedly warned Weissman that Iranian agents planned to kidnap, torture and kill U.S. and Israeli agents in northern Iraq.

The indictment alleges that Franklin made clear that the information was "highly classified."

According to well-placed sources, Weissman relayed this information to Rosen, who relayed it to Gilon at the Israeli Embassy; Glenn Kessler, the State Department correspondent at The Washington Post; and Howard Kohr, AIPAC's executive director, identified in the indictment as "another AIPAC employee."

McNulty made it clear that neither AIPAC nor any of its other employees were targets.

"We have no basis for charging anyone else for unlawful disclosure of classified information," he said. "And I might add also that AIPAC as an organization has expressed its concern on several occasions with the allegations against Rosen and Weissman, and, in fact, after we brought some of the evidence that we had to AIPAC's attention, it did the right thing by dismissing these two individuals."

McNulty would not comment on what prompted the initial investigation into the AIPAC officials, but sources close to the defense believe Israeli officials in Washington were being monitored in 1999.

AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman this past April, eight months after the FBI probe came to light.

"AIPAC dismissed Rosen and Weissman because they engaged in conduct that was not part of their jobs and because this conduct did not comport in any way with standards that AIPAC expects of its employees," spokesman Patrick Dorton told JTA on Aug. 4, repeating the group's previous position.

"AIPAC could not condone or tolerate the conduct of the two employees under any circumstances. The organization does not seek, use or request anything but legally obtained, appropriate information as part of its work."

A source close to AIPAC said the group is not concerned that the indictment identifies two occasions -- in 2002 concerning the Al-Qaida information and in 2004 concerning the sting -- when Rosen allegedly shared information with AIPAC staffers.

"There was no indication by Steve Rosen within AIPAC that he was" obtaining classified information, said the source, who asked not to be identified.

AIPAC has already scaled back its lobbying of the executive branch of government -- something the indictment pointedly notes was Rosen's expertise.

Kohr, the group's executive director, has said that AIPAC is instituting changes in how it operates as a result of the investigation, without providing details.

Israeli officials have confirmed to JTA that the FBI is seeking an interview with Gilon. It is not clear if the FBI also wants to talk with the two other Israeli Embassy officials cited in the indictment; they are not named.

"It's premature to comment on the substance of the affidavit since we've just received it," an Israeli official said. "We're fully confident in the professional conduct of our diplomats who fully conduct themselves in accordance with diplomatic practice. We have seen no information that would suggest anything to the contrary."

The FBI raided AIPAC's offices on Aug. 27, 2004, the first time the investigation was made public.

One major question likely to come up during the trial is why the two U.S. government officials listed in the indictment as leaking the information are not facing trial.

"They should be going after all the guys who gave the information," said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Soliciting classified information is hardly unusual in Washington, Hoenlein said. "Reporters do it every single day."

JTA intern Avi Mayer in Washington contributed to this report.

This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

To read more, pick up a copy of the Jewish Times at one of our newsstand locations."

The Jewish Week: Bill Luti not expected to be indicted

2005-08-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

Jewish and Israel News from New York - The Jewish Week: "08/12/2005) Print this Article Send this article
A Big Chill In D.C.?
Indictment of ex-AIPAC staffers triggers anxiety among lobbyists.
Ron Kampeas and Matthew E. Berger - Washington (JTA)

Somewhere between the benign inanities of water-cooler gossip and documents stamped “Top Secret” churns a wide gray sea of information that quenches the thirst of the lobbyists, legislators, political junkies and journalists who populate Washington.

Most of them ignore the cheap gossip and turn their ears away from the deepest secrets, but the material in between — all of which comes under the vast rubric of “inside information” — is treated like gold here. Careers are made, agendas advanced and ideas are sold based on conversations over intimate lunches and dinners in restaurants, during long phone calls and on chatty, rambling walks.

That could change depending on the outcome of expected trials for the alleged unauthorized use of classified information of two former senior staffers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a midlevel Pentagon analyst.

On Aug. 4, Paul McNulty, the federal prosecutor in eastern Virginia, unsealed the Justice Department’s indictment against Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former director of foreign policy issues; Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst; and Larry Franklin, a former Pentagon Iran analyst.

In doing so, he made it clear that from now on, those who receive classified information should be as wary as those who dispense it.

“Those entrusted with safeguarding our nation’s secrets must remain faithful to that trust,” McNulty said.

“Those not authorized to receive classified information must resist the temptation to acquire it, no matter what their motivation may be.” He said there was “a clear line in the law” against dealing in classified information.

Rosen, Weissman and Franklin all plan to plead not guilty.

AIPAC has hired outside lawyers to review its practices, and others in the Jewish community might soon do the same.

But Jewish and non-Jewish groups wonder just how to refine such practices in a city where no one until now has seriously considered the solicitation of inside information to be criminal.

“The law governing unauthorized disclosures of classified information is not ‘a clear line,’ it is a blurry and discontinuous line,” the Federation of American Scientists said in a statement about last week’s indictments.

“As a practical matter, receipt of formally classified information is part of the daily business of national-security reporting and occasionally of government watch-dogging,” said the federation, a nuclear watchdog that advocates against government secrecy. “Mr. McNulty’s public statement is not a reliable guide to law or policy on national-security classification.”

Steven Aftergood, the federation’s secrecy project director, told JTA: “This prosecution breaks troubling new ground, and it means that anyone who works in national-security policy advocacy or as a government watchdog could be liable to prosecution. That’s preposterous.”

Abbe Lowell, Rosen’s attorney, called the charges a “misguided attempt to criminalize the public’s right to participate in the political process.”

Journalists in Washington were on guard. The New York Times has reported that McNulty’s office wants to talk to all reporters who communicated in the past with Rosen and Weissman. JTA has learned that two of the reporters referred to as receiving leaks in 2004 about alleged threats against Americans and Israelis in northern Iraq are Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Laura Rozen of the Nation.

A number of lobbyists, Jewish and non-Jewish, told JTA that the practices outlined in the indictment are not too far removed from their own daily practices.

“It’s going to chill all lobbying,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “I think it will chill journalists’ ability to get information. Many of us have conversations with government officials. Can I talk to you about a meeting I had with a government official? I’m not sure anymore. Am I supposed to ask if this is classified or not? It could change the whole nature of discourse in Washington.”

The indictment charges that Weissman and Rosen got classified information on Iran and terrorism from Franklin and two other unnamed U.S. government officials. It also alleges that they relayed the information to officials at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and to journalists.

AIPAC itself, which was not implicated in the indictment, has hired former Justice Department officials now working for Howrey LLP, one of Washington’s leading law firms, to review its lobbying practices.

“The conduct of Rosen and Weissman was clearly not part of their job,” an AIPAC official said.

“However, we made a decision that the events of the last year warranted an internal review of policies and procedures related to information collection and dissemination.”

AIPAC dismissed Rosen and Weissman in April, saying their activities did not comport with the organization’s standards.

AIPAC, meanwhile, is continuing to pay the legal fees for Rosen and Weissman.

Some observers link the case to the Bush administration’s zeal to crush the culture of leaks and, more particularly, to a recent investigation that led to the jailing of The New York Times reporter Judith Miller for not revealing sources who allegedly gave her information about a CIA operative.

“There’s a little bit of the echo of the Karl Rove situation,” said Larry Noble, a lobbying expert who is the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political giving.

In the AIPAC case, at least two government officials cited in the indictment for leaking allegedly classified information to Rosen and Weissman do not face charges and are not likely to. The officials are not named in the indictment, but one, in fact, was recently promoted to a senior administration job dealing with sensitive security information, according to a source close to Weissman and Rosen’s legal defense.

Taking action against those who receive classified information has been quite rare until now, according to Steve Pomerantz, a former FBI counterterrorism chief who now advises Jewish groups.

Key to such prosecutions is the accused’s knowledge that the information is classified, which would be much easier to prove with a government employee.

Yet nothing in the indictment suggests that Rosen and Weissman ever saw a document marked “Top Secret.”

Instead, the indictment relies on snatches of taped conversations in which Rosen and Weissman allegedly refer to material as “secret” or “sensitive” — or, in one instance, as “classified.”

The single document mentioned was retyped by Franklin, according to the indictment, and faxed to Rosen — suggesting that it might not have been clear to Rosen that it was classified. Sources close to Rosen’s defense say the fax was simply a list of Iran’s bad acts, which could have been compiled from any newspaper’s database.

Elsewhere, the indictment recounts a March 10, 2003, meeting of Franklin, Rosen and Weissman at Union Station in Washington.

“In the course of the meeting, the three men moved from one restaurant to another restaurant and then finished the meeting in an empty restaurant,” the indictment notes.

One source close to the defense says the movement was a matter of finishing breakfast at one place and stopping for coffee at another.

In the Jewish community, there are few if any guidelines governing how staffers may lobby. That may now change, officials said.

“It’s definitely worth giving some thought to,” said Martin Raffel, the associate executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella organization for Jewish community relations councils and Jewish organizations."

Congratulations to Jeremy Issacharoff on his reappointment as Mossad Chief in Washington.

2005-08-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Jeremy Issacharoff on his reappointment as Mossad Chief in Washington.:
8/10/2005
"Congratulations to Jeremy Issacharoff on his reappointment as Mossad Chief in Washington.
Jeremy Issacharoff is back in Washington as number two at the Israeli Embassy. He formerly served as Mossad Chief in Washington DC and normally this would be a set back in his career but he was so very successful in his previous tour as US spy master that he has been called back to clean up Naor Gilon's mess. Gilon made a handful of small errors but instead of taking a soft touch in regards to spying in the US Gilon tried to muscle people around with his tremendous clout. Gilon reacted poorly in the Adam Ciralsky matter. Instead of just burning Ciralsky Gilon attempted to strong arm the FBI Counter Intelligence Division chief David Szady. Gilon organized a protest that stretched from the Press to Congress to the White House claiming Szady was an anti-Semite. It can be safely assumed that Jeremy Issacharoff will play the game far more subtly that the rash and foolish Naor Gilon.

Despite claims to the contrary Israel has conducted an aggressive pattern of spying in the United States for years. Spying in the US appears to have been coordinated by the Minister for Political Affairs. These spies appear to include Jeremy Issacharoff, the head of the Foreign Ministry's strategic division, Ron Prosor, Acting deputy director general. (chief political adviser to Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.), Yaki Dayan of the Foreign Ministry, and Franklin's handler Naor Gilon."

The Scope of US Spying in America - (United Press International)

2005-08-06T05:47:00.001-07:00

FBI steps up AIPAC probe - (United Press International):

FBI steps up AIPAC probe
By Richard Sale
UPI Intelligence Correspondent

"But a former federal law enforcement official said Israeli spying against the United States had been "widespread" for many years, and that during the Cold War, Israeli penetration of U.S. operations was second "only to the Soviet Union."

"Few people realize that the Israeli Counterintelligence Desk at the Bureau was second in size only to the CI Soviet desk," he said.

A former very senior CIA counterintelligence official told UPI that in 1998-99, the CIA discovered an Israeli couple, who were subcontracted to a U.S. phone company, were working for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.

"They did incredible damage -- they got incredibly sensitive data, including key words identifying individuals or projects," this source said, adding he himself gave the case to the FBI.

Perhaps the most notorious Israeli operation was the recruitment of Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst, who was convicted in U.S. federal court and sentenced to life in prison for selling military documents to Israel. UPI reported in 1987, quoting FBI officials, the FBI had traced stolen Pollard data up into the Eastern Bloc where it was traded in return for the Soviet Union raising the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel."

The Scope of US Spying in America - (United Press International)

2005-08-06T05:47:00.000-07:00

Feds Closing In ON William Luti

2005-08-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

AIPAC Spy Nest Exposed- by Justin Raimondo: "UPDATE: Via Joshua Marshall, this news just in: the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is reporting:

"A source close to the defense said that one of the U.S. officials involved, who has not been indicted, was recently appointed to a senior Bush administration post. The source, who asked not to be identified, would not name the official."
"

Gen. Franks Asked for an Investigation of Leak - Someone in Feith's Office

2005-08-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

..:: Minorit's ::..: "To a certain degree, the Franklin investigation is the product of an investigation that was initiated by Franks in the spring of 2002. That was after Afghanistan and before Iraq. Franks convened a small group of senior planners for a discussion of the idea of a war against Saddam. He cautioned the officers not to leak anything from the discussion, for fear that secrets would find their way to the press and to the enemy - and, even worse, to Feith and the armed forces' chiefs of staff in Washington, who were trying to dictate their own plan. A few weeks later, Franks seethed when he read the secrets in a report by William Arkin in The Los Angeles Times. Franks asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to investigate the source of the leak, which was endangering the lives of American soldiers. Rumsfeld acceded to the request, and investigators from the FBI and from the office of special investigations of the U.S. Air Force showed up in the offices of Feith and his aides. The source of the leak was not found; the suspicion remained. Recently, it has also been claimed that the U.S. intelligence community is looking into the possibility that Feith's Iraqi protege, Ahmed Chalabi, told the Iranians that the Americans broke their code.

Feith is disliked because he tried to impose fantastical military ideas on the officer corps, because he is demonstratively sympathetic to Israel and also, it cannot be denied, because he is Jewish. The congruence between the desires of the Bush administration and the Sharon government is considerable but not total: Jerusalem doesn't like Washington's ties with the Saudis, and Washington is suspicious of Israel's ties with the Chinese."

Harold Rhode is the Source of the Valerie Plame Leak

2005-08-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

There is suspicion that the White House learned of Valerie Plame Wilson from a State Department memo. This memo was requested by Ambassador Marc Grossman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from Carl W. Ford Jr. the then head of INR, State Departments intelligence unit. The request came about two weeks before Ambassador Wilson lit into the Bush Administration for lying about fraudulent reports that Iraq had attempted to buy yellow cake uranium in Niger.

My first reaction was a nagging question about Ambassador Grossman, was he the source of the leak, was he a traitor? There are a number of readily identifiable Administration figures who broke laws to further the Neocon agenda. Ambassador Grossman however does not fit the profile. He had no close associations with AEI, AIPAC, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Mossad, Michael Ledeen, or Richard Perle. Additionally Ambassador Grossman has served with Distinction under both Bushes as well as President Clinton. Israel has had a long time aggressive spying program against the US and not all of the Israeli spies are Neocons. Take Martin Indyk, US ambassador to Israel for instance. Indyk was so obviously a spy that he had his security clearances yanked. Still Grossman does not fit the Indyk profile either.
So I believe Ambassador Grossman is in the clear. Besides he requested the memo before the White House put the crosshairs on Ambassador Wilson, Additionally the Grossman memo calls Mrs. Wilson Valerie Wilson not Valerie Plame. So if not Marc Grossman, who?

One man who also had access to the information on Valerie Plame Wilson stands out as a person of interest, Harold Rhode. Rhode had extensively examined the evidence for Iraqi WMDs as part of the OSP under Doug feith at Pentagon. Rhode is personally very close to Michael Ledeen who is a prime suspect in planting the fraudulent reports that Iraq had attempted to buy yellow cake uranium in Niger. Additionally Rhode is a close associate of Judith Miller who is suspected of supplying the Plame story. They have a long history of working together. Rhode worked for Feith who worked for Wolfowitz. Paul Wolfowitz is also the man who brought Lewis Scooter Libby into Government work. Libby is of course the one who is at the center of the Valerie Plame Wilson leaks. My bet is that Harold Rhode is the source of the Plame leak.

IRmep Applauds Indictment of AIPAC Operatives as a Productive First Step Toward Better U.S. Middle East Policy

2005-08-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

U.S. Newswire : Releases : "IRmep Applauds Indictment of AIPAC Operatives as...": "IRmep Applauds Indictment of AIPAC Operatives as a Productive First Step Toward Better U.S. Middle East Policy

8/4/2005 3:44:00 PM

To: National and International desks
Contact: Grant F. Smith of IRmep, 202-342-7325, info@IRmep.org
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) applauds U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty's indictments of former AIPAC director Steve Rosen and senior analyst Keith Weissman.

Today's indictments reveal a new seriousness toward violations of a lobby that has long damaged U.S. policy in the Middle East. While any American under indictment is innocent until proven guilty, IRmep urges the prosecutor to maintain the momentum of the investigation. Are AIPAC's activities as an unregistered foreign agent and former election law violations cause for additional indictments? The Federal Election Committee (FEC) has previously ruled that AIPAC 'probably' violated U.S. election laws, but ended the case with no action. IRmep urges the U.S. Attorney to pick up where the FEC failed to uphold the law.

As Americans continue to insist on more transparent Middle East policy formulation and accountability, more are becoming involved in confronting the AIPAC by shining a light upon shadowy actors who have consistently thwarted productive U.S. policy.

Steve Rosen himself once said, "A lobby is like a night flower: It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." (internal AIPAC memo, cited in the Jerusalem Post, August 24, 2004).

Americans who want more criminal prosecutions against AIPAC and other night flowers can now take ten actions to improve U.S. policy in the Middle East: http://www.IRmep.org/10/10.htm is a clip from an online educational "webinar" called "Ten Things Every American can do to Improve U.S. Middle East Policy". IRmep encourages Americans who feel endangered by the influence of AIPAC to acquire these empowerment tools for fixing our policy formulation process.

About the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc. - http://www.IRmep.org Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy is a non-partisan; independent research organization dedicated to informing and educating the American people about U.S. policy formulation process toward the Middle East. The heart of the IRmep's work is academically driven research formatted and distributed to be highly usable by the U.S. policy making community. Broadly funded by individual donors, IRmep maintains an independent research agenda that is accurate, relevant and actionable.

http://www.usnewswire.com/"

Two Charged in Pentagon Information Leak - Yahoo! News

2005-08-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Two Charged in Pentagon Information Leak - Yahoo! News "Two Charged in Pentagon Information Leak By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 3 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Two former employees of a pro- Israel lobbying organization were charged Thursday with conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. defense information for five years.

A five-count indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., named Steven Rosen, formerly the director of foreign policy issues for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Keith Weissman, the organization's former senior Iran analyst.

The charges follow the indictment in June of Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin, who is accused of leaking classified military information to an Israeli official and the AIPAC employees.

The lengthy FBI investigation that led to Thursday's charges has been closely followed in Washington, where AIPAC is an influential interest group. The case also has served as a reminder of a tense time in U.S.-Israeli relations: the 1985 spy scandal in which civilian Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard was caught spying for Israel.

The government is not accusing Franklin, Rosen and Weissman of espionage, although the FBI has questioned at least one Israeli official and also wants to talk to Naor Gilon, who recently returned to Israel after a stint as a senior diplomat in the Israeli embassy in Washington.

Israeli Embassy spokesman David Siegel said his country's diplomats have done nothing wrong. "We've seen no information to suggest anything to the contrary," Siegel said.

He acknowledged that U.S. officials have asked about questioning Gilon. "We've expressed our willingness to cooperate," he said.

Rosen, a top AIPAC lobbyist for 23 years, and Weissman disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 on a variety of topics, including al-Qaida, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and U.S. policy in Iran, the indictment said. Among their contacts were U.S. and foreign government officials and reporters, the indictment said.

One unanswered question is how the men might have obtained classified material before they met Franklin, who specialized in Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs, in 2003. While the indictment suggests that at least two other U.S. government officials also were sources of classified information, no other charges are planned at this time, U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said at a news conference in Alexandria.

McNulty said the men apparently were motivated by a desire to advance their personal agendas and careers by trading on prized information. "The facts alleged today tell a story of individuals who put their own interests and their own views of foreign policy ahead of American national security," McNulty said.

Rosen, 63, of Silver Spring, Md.; Weissman, 53, of Bethesda, Md.; and Franklin, 58, of Kearneysville, W.Va., are scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 16 in Alexandria.

"The charges in the indictment announced today are entirely unjustified," said Abbe Lowell, Rosen's attorney. John Nassikas, Weissman's lawyer, said, "We are disappointed that the government has decided to pursue these charges, which Mr. Weissman strongly denies."

Franklin previously pleaded innocent, but Thursday's indictment dropped one charge against him and he will be re-arraigned on the others. Prosecutors did not explain why they dropped the charge of communicating classified information to someone not authorized to receive it.

Plato Cacheris, Franklin's lawyer, said he had been expecting additional charges. He said Franklin cooperated with investigators for three months in 2004.

The investigation has been under way since at least 2001 and has included use of sophisticated electronic surveillance techniques, law enforcement officials have said. The indictment suggests that investigators were listening in on Rosen as far back as 1999, because the indictment includes a purported snippet of a conversation he had with an unidentified foreign official.

For the past two years, the FBI has focused on whether Franklin passed classified U.S. material on Iran and other matters to AIPAC, and whether that group in turn passed it on to Israel. Both AIPAC and Israel deny any wrongdoing. AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman in April. "The organization does not seek, use or request anything but legally obtained appropriate information as part of its work," AIPAC spokesman Patrick Dorton said.

Israel has said it imposed a ban on espionage in the United States after the Pollard scandal. He was sentenced to life in prison. That case damaged U.S.-Israeli relations and remains a sore point between the countries.

Associated Press reporter Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Va., contributed to this report"

NutBoy Timmerman Preaching Hate at the Museum of Tolerance

2005-08-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

U-Press Telegram - TODAY IN U: "Museum of Tolerance, 9786 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 553-8403. 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Saturdays and Jewish holidays. $10 adults; $8 seniors ages 62 and older; $6 students with ID. Author Kenneth R. Timmerman discusses his book "Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran" 7 p.m. Sunday, $10, reservations required."

UPI Intelligence Watch - Mossad Chief in US Recalled To Israel 05/6/2005

2005-08-01T05:31:00.000-07:00

UPI Intelligence Watch - (United Press International): "UPI Intelligence Watch

By John C.K. Daly
UPI International Correspondent
Washington, DC, May. 6 (UPI) -- The widening American Israel Public Affairs Committee scandal, with the FBI investigating the passing of classified information on U.S. policy toward Iran to AIPAC, has claimed another victim. Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, will leave his post this summer. Gilon is reportedly the Israeli representative who received classified information from two AIPAC employees who allegedly received the information during conversations with Larry Franklin, the Pentagon analyst arrested Wednesday by the FBI. Gilon has been at the Israeli Embassy since 2002 but is leaving "for personal reasons," according to an Israeli Embassy spokesman in Washington. No employee of the Israeli Embassy has yet been questioned by U.S. intelligence in the affair; U.S. authorities have not notified the embassy itself about the inquiry and no one there has been asked to cooperate with detectives. Israeli Embassy officials in Washington say that since the affair was made public in 2004, their relations with their U.S. counterparts have become strained."

www.aljazeera.com: FBI to probe senior Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon in Franklin case -

2005-07-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

FBI to probe senior Israeli diplomat in Franklin case -: "FBI to probe senior Israeli diplomat in Franklin case
7/31/2005 7:00:00 PM GMT

The FBI also seeks interrogating other Israeli diplomats in connection with Lawrence Franklin

The United States demanded the FBI, The Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate Naor Gilon, the head of the political department at the Israeli embassy in Washington, for allegedly having a role in the Pentagon spy case, which until now has been presented as an internal American affair, the Hebrew daily Haaretz has reported.

Gilon was the Israeli diplomat who headed the political department at the Israeli embassy in Washington at the time classified information was transmitted from a Pentagon employee to Israel through two men at AIPAC, the American lobby for Israel.

The FBI also seeks interrogating other Israeli diplomats in connection with Lawrence Franklin, the Pentagon analyst currently under investigation for passing classified documents to Israel through AIPAC.

The demand was discussed at an interministerial meeting in Jerusalem a few weeks ago. The consensus was that neither Gilon nor other Israeli diplomats should undergo investigation by the FBI but that Israel would be prepared to respond in writing to questions.

Israeli civil servants have immunity and cannot be investigated by foreign countries about actions taken in their work capacity.

The American request to investigate Gilon and other Israeli representatives for allegedly having a role in the Pentagon spy case comes as a clear indication that the Americans believe Israel is involved in the case.

A report published by the Hebrew daily Haaretz said that FBI agents will travel to Israel shortly to deal with the case.

There had been developments with regard to the Franklin case, Israeli sources said, adding that the issue is being dealt with by the legal adviser to the Justice Ministry.

The FBI contradicts AIPAC assurances that Israel is not a target of investigation in the spy scandal. The Israeli lobby in the U.S. had also defended the two officials accused of passing the information they received from Franklin, but abruptly fired them. However it was reported that it continues to pay for their legal defense."

Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen

2005-07-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen: "April 7, 2005

Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen
By Katherine Yurica
Would you be surprised to find that a man who was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan Administration, a man who is the darling of the Bush White House and is an adviser to Karl Rove, a man who loves Machiavelli and studies him, a neo-conservative who has close ties to one of America’s leading “Christian” Dominionists—Pat Robertson, and a man who called Pearl Harbor “lucky” and a providentially inspired event—may be the man who is behind the forging of the Niger documents that convinced America to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq?

Ian Masters, host of Background Briefing, in Los Angeles, interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, the former head of Counterterrorism operations at the CIA. Cannistraro came close to naming the man who forged the Niger documents. When Masters asked, “If I said ‘Michael Ledeen’?” Vincent Cannistraro replied, “You’d be very close.”

Who is Michael Ledeen? Or perhaps more importantly, what does he believe? Here are just a few quotes from his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago. (Truman Talley Books (St. Martin’s Press), 1999.) Ledeen wrote:

“When Jimmy Carter was president, he was so appalled by the assassinations that had been carried out by American officers and agents that he issued a stern executive order forbidding the practice. This had the unanticipated consequence of favoring the forces of evil, because we could not go after individual terrorists….In his moralistic attempt to make murder less likely, Carter made it more likely, by both our enemies and ourselves.” (pp. 94-95)

“There are several circumstances in which good leaders are likely to have to enter into evil: whenever the very existence of the nation is threatened; when the state is first created or revolutionary change is to be accomplished; when removing an evil tyrant; and when the society becomes corrupt and must be restored to virtue…Saving a state that has sunk into corruption is Machiavelli’s most passionate concern…” (pp. 101-102)

“Moses created a new state and a new religion, which makes him one of the most revolutionary leaders of all time…The execution of the sinners was necessary to confirm Moses’ authority.” (pp. 102-103)

“The winning formula is threefold: good laws, good arms, good religion. We are back to Moses.” (p. 111)

“Good religion teaches men that politics is the most important enterprise in the eyes of God. Like Moses, Machiavelli wants the law of his state to be seen, and therefore obeyed, as divinely ordered. The combination of fear of God and fear of punishment—duly carried out with good arms—provides the necessary discipline for good government.”(pp. 117-118)

“American evangelical Christianity is the sort of ‘good religion’ Machiavelli calls for. The evangelicals do not quietly accept their destiny, believing instead they are called upon to fight corruption and reestablish virtue.” (p. 159)

“Once corruption has taken hold of a free nation, it is headed toward tyranny.” (p. 172)

Notice that in the next quote, Ledeen’s presupposition is that only liberals are “corrupt.” He criticized Bob Dole and Jack Kemp in 1996 for refusing to attack Bill Clinton’s character during the campaign.

“Refusing to hold public officials accountable for their corrupt practices reinforces the people’s perception that turpitude and power are inextricably linked, and undermines even the best laws and institutions. Inevitably, with the passage of time, liberty itself is crushed.” (p. 173)

“Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader—a dictator—willing to use those dreaded ‘extraordinary measures, which few know how, or are willing, to employ.’ (p. 173)

“Machiavelli…has not lost his democratic faith. His call for a brief period of iron rule is a choice of the lesser of two evils: if the corruption continued, a real tyranny would be just a matter of time (making it even harder to restore free institutions), whereas freedom can be preserved if a good man can be found to put the state back in order. Just as it is sometimes necessary temporarily to resort to evil actions to achieve worthy objectives, so a period of dictatorship is sometimes the only hope for freedom.” (p. 174)

“Machiavelli’s favorite hero…Moses exercised dictatorial power, but that awesome power was used to create freedom.” (p. 174)

“We should not be outraged by Machiavelli’s call for a temporary dictatorship as an effective means to either revivify or restore freedom.” (p. 174)

Speaking of Germany following W.W. II, Ledeen wrote:

“We ‘denazified’ the country, hung many of the major leaders of the Third Reich, and forced all adults to answer detailed questionnaires about their activities and associations during Hitler’s rule.” We barred from positions of power and civic influence those who had actively participated in the Nazi regime.” (p. 175)

It would be foolish for America’s political strategists and congressional leaders to ignore Michael Ledeen and his interpretation of Machiavelli. Mr. Ledeen speaks from the cutting edge of a group of men and women who desire nothing more than to reconstruct America in their own image. This nation is in grave danger. Ledeen belongs to a group of men, including Harry Jaffa, Pat Robertson, Willmoore Kendall to Allan Bloom, who, according to Shadia Drury, scholar and author of Leo Strauss and the American Right, share “the view that America is too liberal and pluralistic and that what it needs is a single orthodoxy that governs the public and private lives of its citizens.”[1]

The belief in a single voice that governs the public should cause all Americans to understand these men want to convert this nation to a permanent dictatorship. Their inspirer was Leo Strauss, a professor who taught Machiavellian methods to many of them at the University of Chicago. In fact, Paul Wolfovitz earned his doctorate under Strauss and many of the neo-cons in the White House studied under him. Strauss believed every society needs a “single public orthodoxy.” As Drury put it, “a set of ideas that defines what is true and false, right and wrong, noble and base.” Strauss believed that the role of religion was indispensable to the political success of a nation. For a political society had to hold together and act as a unit in lock step with the leader. Strauss believed that religion was the means to inculcate the desired ideas into the minds of the masses. He didn’t care what religion—just as long as it was a religion that could link itself to the political order.

Michael Ledeen singled out the evangelicals as most like the “Machiavellian” model described by Strauss. Evangelicals, while decrying the aberrant power of a Jim Jones over his congregation, have always had little Jim Joneses telling them what to do and how to live from their pulpits all over America. Evangelicals thirst for power, submit to power, and now are harnessed to a power that is driving them toward the completion of the take over of the USA. Our only hope is to wake up the churches and call them to repentance. And the irony is, as Ledeen points out, if we will stand up and attack the immorality and corruption within the Republican Party, which has reached the lowest depths in the history of our nation, and which the GOP supports, the bedraggled verbally abused Democrats will sit up and notice at long last that they are recognized as the moral leaders they have always been. What Leo Strauss and Michael Ledeen and the other dominionists really hate, is the loving Christian ethics that established FDR's New Deal. You see, the great success of Christian liberalism is that it threatens their greed and that’s what the fight is all about.

[1] Leo Strauss and the American Right by Shadia Drury, St. Martin’s Press, 1999, New York."

Haaretz - Israel News - FBI seeks to Question Mossad Spy Master Naor Gilon

2005-07-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

Haaretz - Israel News - FBI seeks to probe senior Israeli diplomat in Pentagon spy case: "Last update - 07:31 28/07/2005

FBI seeks to probe senior Israeli diplomat in Pentagon spy case
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is demanding that Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli embassy in Washington, be interrogated in connection to the Pentagon spy case.

It is possible the FBI will also want to interrogate other Israeli diplomats in connection with Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin, an Iran expert under investigation for allegedly passing classified documents to Israel via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The American request was discussed a few weeks ago at an interministerial meeting in Jerusalem. The consensus was that neither Gilon nor other officials should be allowed to undergo investigation by the FBI but that Israel would be prepared to respond in writing to questions.

According to accepted practice, Israeli civil servants have immunity and cannot be investigated by foreign countries about actions taken in their work capacity, and it appears that Israel would like this immunity applied in the current affair.

The demand to investigate Gilon's role and possibly also that of other Israeli representatives is the clearest indication that the Americans believe Israel is involved in the Franklin case, which until now has been presented as an internal American affair.

It is also another stumbling block in the ties between Israel and the United States, which have grown less close since President George W. Bush was elected for a second term. The Franklin affair comes on the heels of a crisis between the two countries over Israeli sales of arms to China.

According to a report on Channel 10 Wednesday night, FBI agents are planning to come to Israel shortly to deal with the case.

Israeli sources confirmed that there had been developments with regard to the Franklin-AIPAC case but said that no federal agents had yet arrived here. They said the issue is being dealt with by the legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, Ehud Keinan, in conjunction with the Justice Ministry."

Congressman John Conyers, Jr. "No More Pardons for Traitor-gate Criminals"

2005-07-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

APFN: "No More Pardons for Traitor-gate Criminals

Convicted Previously of National Security Crimes, Elliott Abrams Joins Rove and Libby as Latest Figures Newest Figure in Traitor-gate

Dear Friend:

Did you know that Elliot Abrams, pardoned by the first President Bush for the Iran-Contra crimes he committed under the Reagan Administration, now works for the Bush White House? And has been implicated in the leak of Valerie Plame's covert identity?

I have sent a letter to President Bush asking him to say right now that he will not pardon anyone found guilty of criminal offenses related to the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s CIA cover. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may indict senior White House officials in this case. Join me in demanding that the President not pardon anyone found guilty in his administration who compromises our national security! To send your own copy of this letter to President Bush by email, click here. Our goal is to get at least 10,000 people to email the White House and we will post our tally updates daily on the JohnConyers.com website.

Nine of my Judiciary Committee colleagues also joined me yesterday in sending a letter to the Inspector General seeking an investigation into the 12-hour delay taken by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez before notifying White House staff of the need to preserve documents relating to the Department of Justice’s Valerie Plame leak investigation. Even more troubling is that the Department of Justice only began its investigation 67 days after the CIA first requested it, and only after the Agency asked DoJ four times. To see a copy of the letter, click here.

Treason-gate House Parties

Ambassador Joseph Wilson joined me on a conference call into 320 House Parties with Air America host Randi Rhodes and Democracy Radio's Stephanie Miller. In the call, Ambassador Wilson touched on an element of the emerging scandal with the Administration's leak of Valerie Plame's CIA cover that we would all do well to keep in mind. The Administration's leaks and the Downing Street memos are part of the same issue: they both reflect desperate attempts by the Bush White House to preserve this web of lies that got us into this war under false pretenses.

To listen to the call, visit my website at JohnConyers.com.
See reports and photos from house parties and the Detroit Town Hall Meeting at ConyersBlog.com

Follow the breaking news on Traitor-gate and the Downing Street Minutes on the Stephanie Miller and Randi Rhodes newscasts.

On the front page of my website I have highlighted all the action items that we need to do following the house parties. Click here to take action now.

Please continue to stay in touch and stay involved. It is from the ground up that we will defeat the lies and deceit of this Administration. You are making a difference.

Sincerely,

Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
http://www.johnconyers.com/index.asp"

Arutz Sheva - Crisis in Relations Between Israel and the US- China Arms sales and Naor Gilon Mossad station Chief

2005-07-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

Arutz Sheva - Israel National News: "Crisis in Relations Between Israel and the United States
17:46 Jul 28, '05 / 21 Tammuz 5765
By Ezra HaLevi

Two crises have erupted between the US and Israel, constituting what some analysts are calling the lowest point in relations between the two countries since the imprisonment of Jonathan Pollard.

The Bush administration is refusing to cancel sanctions it placed against Israel, even though the Jewish State has cancelled its deal with China regarding maintenance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Nixing the China was done under intense US pressure and damaged Israel's military industry.

America began freezing joint security projects and delivery of defense equipment to Israel as part of the sanctions.

The sanctions were placed as a result of a bill calling for a five-year ban on the purchase of defense materials from any country selling arms to China. Israel sold China unmanned drones in the early '90s and committed itself in the contract to upgrade the drones from time to time. The crisis erupted when the US accused Israel of violating the US ban on selling arms to China by upgrading the drones, demanding that Israel break the agreement with the Chinese and even refuse to return the Chinese drones themselves.

The US is now demanding that Israel and Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz issue a written apology, enact Knesset legislation preventing future episodes and allow increased US monitoring of Israel's security-related exports through the signing of a joint memorandum that accepts the sanctions.

Mofaz canceled a planned trip to the US following the announcement of the increased US demands. Israeli officials claim the meeting was cancelled due to events in Israel, though a date for another meeting was not set.

Mofaz had wanted to discuss the lifting of sanctions against Israel and the ending of the crisis between the countries and was prepared to capitulate to nearly all of the American demands.

Members of the Israeli delegation in Washington D.C. told Israel's largest daily Yedioth Acharonot that after Israel announced it would give in to most of the US demands, the American delegation, made up of Pentagon and State Department officials revealed more demands and displayed contempt for the Israeli delegation.

The US, who torpedoed Israel's multibillion-dollar sale of Phalcon strategic airborne radar systems to China in 2000, continues to sell arms to countries such as Saudi Arabia, who do not recognize the right of the Jewish State to exist.

As that crisis snowballs, the FBI investigation of AIPAC seems to be turning toward employees of Israel's US Embassy. The FBI is demanding that Naor Gilon, head of the embassy's political department, be interrogated in connection to the case of Pentagon Iran expert Lawrence Franklin, who was caught in an FBI sting operation passing on classified material relating to Israeli security.

Embassy officials usually have immunity and are not allowed to be investigated by foreign countries regarding issues related to their work. Israel has offered the FBI the possibility that Gilon would respond to questions in writing.

The FBI request indicates that Israel is now suspected of being involved in the Franklin case, which until now was portrayed as involving only the AIPAC Israel lobby group.

Israel's Channel 10 reported Wednesay that FBI agents are on their way to Israel in order to take further steps with regard to the case.

Published: 13:11 July 28, 2005
Last Update: 17:46 July 28, 2005"

Rove-Plame Scandal Leading to Deeper White House Horrors? :: from www.uruknet.info

2005-07-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Rove-Plame Scandal Leading to Deeper White House Horrors? :: from www.uruknet.info :: news from occupied Iraq - ch: "Rove-Plame Scandal Leading to Deeper White House Horrors?
Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor, The Crisis Papers

July 19, 2005

At long last, Plamegate -- the scandal surrounding the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson by two "senior administration officials" -- has exploded out of the D.C. beltway to become a major national news story.

It would appear that this scandal goes way beyond Karl Rove and who said what to whom when about Ms. Plame. It certainly is true, though, that turning over that slimy Rove-Plame rock was the way into the larger issues upon which Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and his grand jury apparently are focusing.

(Ain't it almost always so in Washington? The cover-up is always a greater problem for the perpetrators than the original crime, for inevitably even seamier scandals are unearthed one by one; see the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Iran-Contra, et al. The moral lesson -- admit your mistake early, bear the immediate hit, and move on unencumbered -- rarely seems to "take" among politicians, of whatever party.)

What's being covered up in the Plame/Rove case seems to revolve around the Bush Administration's orchestrated, and perhaps illegal, propaganda campaign to justify its invasion of Iraq. Valerie Plame and her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson -- who wrote the op-ed in the New York Times that got this whole thing going -- are just the tips of very large icebergs, and one of those icebergs has a name: the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which we'll examine below.

THE EIGHT BLACKED-OUT PAGES

One of the ruling judges on the case of the two reporters who refused to divulge their Plame-outing source was about to go easy on them when he read Fitzgerald's new information -- eight pages of which were redacted from the public -- and said that the national-security seriousness of what he read changed his mind. The court then ordered Time's Matthew Cooper and the New York Times' Judith Miller to testify or else; Cooper finally did, and Miller is in jail for contempt of court.

We don't know what is in those eight blacked-out pages -- and, if they really do involve national-security matters, we may never be permitted to know precisely. But apparently they provide the locus around which Fitzgerald is building a case that could result in perjury indictments, at the least, for a number of Administration officials and perhaps journalists as well.

(Another judge said that the prosecutor's classified filing -- those missing eight pages -- "decides the case." In other words, to quote Lawrence O'Donnell: "All the judges who have seen the prosecutors secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment.")

Further, depending on what Bush and Cheney knew and when they knew it -- and what they did or covered-up in the possible light of such knowledge -- there may be plenty of ammunition for likely impeachment hearings. (Note: Bush hired a private attorney last summer for this CIA-leak case. )

And the two journalists in question, Cooper and Miller, have their own attorneys. It's defense-attorney heaven in the nation's capital these days.

PERSONAL REASONS MILLER NOT TESTIFYING?

Why Judith Miller is not testifying apparently goes to the heart of Fitzgerald's case. There are reasonable grounds for wondering whether Miller might have been aiding, inadvertently or consciously, Rove and the rest of the WHIG to help move the country toward war with Iraq. For example, she may have been told by Administration officials about Plame and her CIA job, and helped spread that word to other journalists, who then contacted Rove and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. Cooper over the weekend revealed that it was Libby who was the second of the "two senior administration officials" who leaked Plame's identity.

The New York Times already has apologized for running several of Miller's pre-Iraq War stories that were based on faulty weapons-of-mass-destruction intelligence; much of that concocted intel was provided by Ahmed Chalabi, the sleazy Iraqi exile leader who hitched his wagon to the Pentagon neo-cons to get his forces back into Iraq in the wake of a U.S. invasion. Those Miller stories helped provide the imprimatur of New York Times prestige that other media outlets then picked up on, helping create a nationwide zeitgeist of imminent threat from Iraq.

Indeed, Dick Cheney squared the circle by using Miller's stories as "evidence" that even the hallowed New York Times had determined that Iraq had, or soon would have, nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

"The day The Times story ran," wrote Amy and David Goodman in their invaluable book "The Exception to the Rulers...," Cheney "made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows to advance the administration's bogus claims. On NBC's Meet the Press, Cheney declared that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes to make enriched uranium. It didn't matter that the IAEA refuted the charge both before and after it was made. But Cheney didn't want viewers just to take his word for it. 'There's a story in The New York Times this morning,' he said smugly. 'And I want to attribute The Times.' This was the classic disinformation two-step: the White House leaks a lie to The Times, the newspaper publishes it as a startling expose, and then the White House conveniently masquerades behind the credibility of The Times."

WHO GETS THE HOT POT?

What we are witnessing right now is a grand-scale game of political/legal "hot potato." Nobody wants to be holding the various hot pots around the Plame case when the grand jury finally settles on its various indictments, which could come in the next several months.

Rove these days, through an anonymous source (probably his attorney), is trying to deflect blame and attention to others, especially journalists, by throwing out one bizarre scenario after another to escape legal culpability. (Not surprisingly, even though Bush and Press Secretary Scott McClellan say the Administration will refuse to comment because there's an "official investigation" going on, Rove, through his surrogate, feels free to continue his attempts to comment on and shape the case.)

But, from what Fitzgerald has suggested, he and the grand jury long ago determined who the leakers were. That's not what is at issue now. The investigation is all tied in with the national-security matters talked about on those blacked-out eight pages.

And, a reasonable guess is that those pages deal in some fashion with the actions -- legal or illegal, overt or covert, actual or covered-up -- of the members of an inner council of Administration heavies called the White House Iraq Group.

Just one example of the WHIG's function and influence: "The escalation of nuclear rhetoric a year ago [in 2002], including the introduction of the term 'mushroom cloud' into the debate, coincided with the formation of ... WHIG, a task force assigned to 'educate the public' about the threat from Hussein, as a participant put it." (This quote comes from a groundbreaking 2003 article by investigative reporters Barton Gelman and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post.)

EENY MEENIE HUNT FOR WAR JUSTIFICATION

How did we get to Cheney and Rice scaring the population with talk of "mushroom clouds" and wild tales of Iraqi WMD that might be made available to al-Qaida terrorists?

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. It was 2002. The Administration already had decided to bomb and invade Iraq, but was having trouble figuring out how to manipulate the propaganda so as to fool Congress, the American people, and the international community into giving them permission to do so.

It was not smooth sailing. Not only were the Democrats and leakers within the CIA beating up on Bush's plans for war, but prestigious conservative Republican leaders, such as Gen. Brent Scowcroft, James Baker III, Dick Army, and Trent Lott also were warning against an invasion of Iraq. Something had to be done.

The disinformation campaign was launched by the WHIG and others inside and outside the White House. (We ordinary citizens learned about Bush's pre-9/11 obsession about attacking Iraq both from memoirs by former Cabinet members, such as Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and National Security Council official Richard Clarke, and most recently verified by the Downing Street Memos leaked from inside the Blair Cabinet.)

REASONS BEHIND THE INVASION

Bush&Co. realized they couldn't come right out and tell everyone what their true motives were -- to depose the Saddam Hussein regime in order to control the world's second largest oil reserve, to set up permanent military bases there, and to use the presence of those bases and the "shock&awe" example of overthrowing a dictator as a warning to other autocratic regimes in the Greater Middle East to bow to U.S. wishes. Those wishes involved oil, Israel, nuclear reactors, terrorism, and the like. So, a convenient reason -- one simple enough for the masses to comprehend -- had to be found that would justify war.

As the Downing Street Memos and other internal British and U.S. documents make clear, it was well-known that Iraq by the mid-1990s was a paper tiger: Its economy, as a result of the embargo, was in tatters; Saddam had control only of the central part of the country (Britain and the U.S. controlled the skies over the so-called "no-fly" zones in the South and the North); its standing army was easily defeatable; and, most important, its major weapons systems and research facilities had been effectively destroyed during the first Gulf War or in the years immediately after. In short, there were no WMD worth mentioning, even though the lying, exaggerating Iraqi exiles kept insisting that the U.S. military would find huge stockpiles of such when they got to Iraq.

But, as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz later said, the Administration settled on WMD ("for bureaucratic reasons"), apparently realizing that it would be the most effective, frightening, and thus acceptable justification. And so the WMD scare campaign began, with nightmarish tales of biological and chemical agents (which senators were told could be delivered by a drone Iraqi air force over East Coast cities), huge missile armadas, and, most tellingly, nuclear weapons. Of course, none of this was true.

Cheney and Rice and Bush and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, the whole lot, spent months peddling their scare stories to the public and to members of Congress, and even sent poor Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations Security Council with a sorry, embarrassing hodge-podge of non-existent "evidence" -- and, damn, it worked.

Thanks to those lies and the stenography of the mainstream media when it came to the Administration's peddling of them, both the Congress and the public bought into Bushthink with regard to the war. That was especially so when the campaign added the laughable suggestion that somehow Saddam Hussein was tied to the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S. (yet another example of the Big Lie Technique used by Rove and his forces). The war was on.

THE WHITE HOUSE IRAQ GROUP

But someone, or some entity, within the Administration had to coordinate these concerted propaganda campaigns. That was the bailiwick and job-assignment of the WHIG, chaired by Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card, the regular members of which were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff. In other words, WHIG included the key decision makers (Rove, Rice, Card, Cheney-via Libby), and the key propaganda specialists (Hughes, Matalin, et al.).

They waited a month to launch their first public-relations bombardment. Why September? Andy Card let slip the reason in an interview with the New York Times: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," he said.

They soon determined that the public was most frightened of a possible nuclear attack by al-Qaida, and so, the day after publication of Card's marketing quote, the Bush Administration heavies began dropping their Iraq-as-nuclear-menace grenades into the public airwaves. They attempted to back up their claims by quoting from reports by international nuclear energy agencies supposedly saying that Iraq was about to become a nuclear power -- but no such reports existed.

But the lack of believable evidence about WMD didn't stop them, and the fright campaign continued. Some of that history may well have been in Fitzgerald's classified showing before the court.

FITZGERALD MIGHT HAVE TO WATCH OUT

In sum, the White House Iraq Group was tasked to come up with propaganda campaigns that would work on the Congress and American people -- no matter how great the fib; indeed, the bigger the lie, the easier it seemed to be to sell it. And their mission included coordinating those campaigns through the various stages, and denouncing and destroying the reputations of those who dared to confront their lies and deceptions.

The WHIG played the public like masters, thanks in no doubt to their stooges and ideological supporters in the mainstream media, who joined in the fool-the-public campaign in major, influential ways. Those who chose not to play the deception game, such as Ambassador Wilson, they decided, would be made to pay the price for their perfidy -- and would serve as a warning to any others inside the Administration who might want to blow some truth-whistles. Interestingly, the trash-Joe-Wilson campaign continues until this day.

To their chagrin, Wilson appears to be a man of great character and courage, and refuses to back down. And why should he? He's been speaking the truth about the Bush Administration's lack of evidence of Iraqi WMD for more than two years, while the Administration's lies have been exposed time and time again on the ground in Iraq and by official agencies and reports.

Again, it's not totally clear how far Special Counsel/U.S Attorney Fitzgerald is willing to go to clear out this nest of Administration vipers. He could choose to stick close to the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson case itself, or he could keep heading in the direction of indicting a good many Administration officials -- perhaps with Bush and Cheney as unindicted co-conspirators -- for their part in lying about classified national-security matters to the Congress and American people. A wild card: If Judith Miller were to trade immunity for prosecution and decide to testify about Rove/Libby/Cheney, anything could happen.

WOUNDED, CORNERED ANIMALS ARE DANGEROUS

If and when the above scenarios start to unfold, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Rove would get desperate enough to try to question the motives and character of the Special Counsel himself, as BuzzFlash puts it, "to try to sink the investigation through an ad hominem attack. This is Rove's pathological gutter tactic. He doesn't know how NOT to use it when backed into a corner." Or Rove/Bush conceivably could do a Nixon and order Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to fire Fitzgerald.

Anything is possible as the Bush Administration paints itself further into the scandal corner, and, desperate to avoid criminal proceedings and/or impeachment, lashes out at its perceived enemies."

William Safire is Scared - Is he a Journalist or an Agent of Influence

2005-07-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

Top columnist warns courts fostering "chilling" US media climate - Yahoo! News: "Top columnist warns courts fostering "chilling" US media climate Wed Jul 20, 6:46 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Veteran New York Times columnist William Safire said he was afraid to rigorously condemn a "chilling" assault on journalism by the courts, fearing reprisals against a colleague jailed for contempt of court.

Safire told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, probing a bill which would shield reporters who refuse to reveal their sources, that the threat to the media was a result of "unchecked abuse of prosecutorial discretion."

"I cannot blaze away at the escalating threats of a federal judiciary that is urgently in need of balancing guidance by elected representatives of the people," he said.

"For the first time, I have to pull my punches. The reason is I'm afraid. I'm afraid of retaliation against federal prisoner 45570083, whose byline in the New York Times is Judith Miller."

Miller was jailed two weeks ago after refusing to reveal her source, for a story that she never even wrote, to a grand jury probing a political scandal centering on White House political guru Karl Rove.

The investigation is trying to find out whether Rove or other officials exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame after her husband Joseph Wilson criticised administration claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged nuclear weapons program.

The Free Flow of Information Act, under scrutiny at the hearing, would bar federal agencies from forcing a journalist to spill the name of a confidential source, except when there was an imminent threat to national security.

US Deputy Attorney General James Comey had been due to testify but did not appear, disappointing Senators, who said his written testimony submitted to the committee contained an strong argument against the proposed law.

Time Magazine journalist Matthew Cooper, who would have followed Miller to jail were it not for a last-minute waiver of confidentiality from his source, also testified at the hearing.

He was accompanied by Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine, who handed over Cooper's emails to the grand jury to escape contempt penalties against the magazine, a decision which drew fire from press freedom advocates.

The decision was the "toughest" of his career, Pearlstine said, and was "one I should never have had to make."

"The experience has only deepened my commitment to ensure protection for confidential sources and made clear to me the urgent need for federal legislation."

Miller meanwhile marked her second week in prison, in Alexandria, outside Washington.

She is being held in a crowded cellblock of about 20 women, and to begin with, she was sleeping on a foam matress on the floor, according to a memo to New York Times employees sent by Executive Editor Bill Keller.

Miller is allowed visits from friends at regular jail visiting hours and has some capacity to make collect calls.

She is expected to serve at least until the mandate of the grand jury expires in October, and supporters fear expanded criminal contempt proceedings could follow."

Israel Apologizes Over Spy Scandal - Ron Prosser

2005-07-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

Israel Apologizes Over Spy Scandal - Softpedia News: "Israel Apologizes Over Spy Scandal
Category: SOFTPEDIA NEWS :: World

New Zeeland accepted Israel's apologies
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NZ's prime minister anounced yesterday that Israel has apologized to New Zealand for attempts by two of its citizens to obtain passports fraudulently last year.

The two suspects have been arrested in March 2004, Uri Kelman and Eli Cara after making comments about working for an Israeli intelligence agency. The two were deported after serving two months of their six-month prison sentences.

They escaped a more severe sentence by each donating NZ$35,000 to a local charity, but faced a maximum penalty of five years in jail and have appealed their convictions.

New Zeeland soon suspended all high level diplomatic contact with Israel, requesting an explanation and an official apology.

New Zeeland's Prime Minister said that "the Israeli letter of apology, signed by Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, states that Israel apologizes for the involvement of its two citizens in the activities which led to their arrest and convictions in New Zealand".

Israeli's foreign minister, Mr Silvan Shalom, or the foreign ministry's director-general Ron Prosser will travel to New Zeeland to mark the end of the diplomatic conflict which arised over a year ago between the two countries."

Top Cheney Aide Among Sources in CIA Story - Yahoo! News - Scooter Libby and Karl Rove Betrayed America For Political Gain

2005-07-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

Top Cheney Aide Among Sources in CIA Story - Yahoo! News: "Top Cheney Aide Among Sources in CIA Story By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
7 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter's story about the identity of a CIA officer, the reporter said Sunday.

Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

The White House refused last week to repeat those assertions when it was revealed that Rove had told Time reporter Matt Cooper that the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently works at the CIA and that she had authorized his trip to Africa. The CIA dispatched Wilson to check out a report that the government of Niger had sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq for nuclear weapons.

Cooper said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he spoke to Libby after first learning about Wilson's wife from Rove.

According to Cooper, Libby and Rove were among the government officials referred to in Cooper's subsequent Time story that said Wilson's wife was a CIA official and that she was involved in sending her husband on a trip to Africa.

Cooper's article was headlined, "A War on Wilson?"

On Sunday, Cooper also said there may have been other sources for that information. He declined to elaborate.

In a first-person account in the latest issue of Time, Cooper said Rove ended their telephone conversation with the words, "I've already said too much." Cooper speculated that Rove could have been worried about being indiscreet or "it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else."

Republicans are responding to the revelations about Rove's role in the leak by saying that the deputy White House chief of staff first heard about Wilson's wife from a reporter.

The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, told NBC that the disclosure about getting the information from a reporter vindicates Rove and that Democrats who have called for Rove's dismissal should apologize.

But John Podesta, former White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration, said the White House's assurance in 2003 that Rove was not involved in the leak "was a lie." Rove's credibility "is in shreds," said Podesta, who appeared with Mehlmen.

Wilson was the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War"

Israel spy investigation dates back years - U.S. News - MSNBC.com

2005-07-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

Israel spy investigation dates back years - U.S. News - MSNBC.com: "Israel spy investigation dates back years
FBI probe into AIPAC under way early in Bush administration

Updated: 6:07 p.m. ET Sept. 3, 2004
WASHINGTON - The FBI first briefed senior White House officials early in the Bush administration about an investigation into whether a major pro-Israel lobbying organization was providing U.S. intelligence information to Israel, officials said Friday.

President Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and her top deputy, Stephen Hadley, were informed of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee probe not long after Bush took office in 2001, according to two administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

The exact date of the first briefing about the long-running counterintelligence investigation was unclear but was probably at least two years ago, the officials said.

The timing suggests that investigators only recently began to focus on Larry Franklin, a Pentagon analyst specializing on Iran and Middle Eastern affairs in the office of policy undersecretary Douglas Feith. That part of the probe concerns whether Frankin passed a classified, draft White House directive to two AIPAC officials, who in turn allegedly provided it to the Israeli government.

No one yet charged
No one has been charged in the case, which is expected to go before a federal grand jury as early as next week in Alexandria, Va. Franklin has not responded to repeated requests for comment but was said by officials to be cooperating. Both AIPAC and Israel have denied any wrongdoing.

Another part of the investigation concerns whether Pentagon officials provided information to Ahmad Chalabi, once a leading Iraqi politician and prewar Defense Department favorite, The Washington Post reported in Friday’s editions. FBI and Justice Department officials said they could not confirm the account.

Disclosure of the broader investigation raises a series of new questions about the case, including whether other AIPAC or Pentagon officials are involved or whether it reaches into the Israeli government. One senior official at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Naor Gilon, has acknowledged meeting with Franklin but said he did nothing illegal.

PR campaign
AIPAC and its allies, meanwhile, have begun to mount a public relations campaign to limit the political damage. AIPAC, long considered one of the most influential lobbying groups in Washington, said in a statement issued Thursday that its members should contact members of Congress “to continue expressing your strong support” for the group and for U.S.-Israeli relations.

Larry Nussbaum, president of AIPAC’s chapter in Kansas City, Mo., said in a separate statement that the investigation amounts to “not only an attack on the organization itself, but on the Jewish community. AIPAC must prove that attacks such as this one will only make us grow stronger.”

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."

The Nation | Article | The Big Chill | Laura Rozen

2005-07-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

The Nation | Article | The Big Chill | Laura Rozen: "article | posted July 14, 2005 (web only)
The Big Chill
Laura Rozen

A chill has taken hold lately among both government officials and the US media. It comes in the wake of a US district court's decision to jail a New York Times reporter for refusing to reveal to a grand jury her sources in the Bush Administration and the FBI investigation of a Pentagon Iran analyst for leaking classified information to former officials with the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC. As a result, those who engage in what have long been standard Washington practices--reporters ferreting out information from government sources, those sources confiding in policy associates, lobbyists and reporters--have become increasingly inhibited in carrying out their jobs.

Even as a press frenzy surrounds a grand jury investigation of whether top presidential advisor Karl Rove leaked a CIA officer's identity to the press, unease in the Washington policy and journalistic communities is also evident. In the wake of Times reporter Judith Miller's jailing and in fear of government prosecution, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has decided, on the advice of its lawyers, not to publish two major articles based on leaked government information. At a recent gathering in a suburban Maryland living room, the conversation among a handful of foreign policy experts and reporters was about the sense of fear and clampdown. One government expert was convinced office phone conversations were regularly monitored by higher-ups, and reporters noted that senior government sources, intimidated by the Franklin investigation, have become more tight-lipped.

While the Franklin/AIPAC investigation is often described as a counterintelligence case, it too is really about government leaks, and the Bush Administration's determination to plug them. On September 9, 2001, the New York Times published a story by then-State Department correspondent Jane Perlez, who reported a major shift in what had been the Bush Administration's rejection of the Clinton Administration's deep engagement in trying to broker a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. Perlez reported that after months of refusing to meet with Yasir Arafat, George W. Bush would grant the Palestinian leader his first audience with the new US President at an upcoming UN General Assembly gathering in New York "if progress were made in high-level talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis."

That meeting between Bush and Arafat never happened. Two days after the Times story appeared, Al Qaeda terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing almost 3,000 people. In the aftermath of those attacks, few people recalled that for a brief moment in the late summer of 2001, the Bush Administration had considered meeting with Arafat and deepening its political involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Everyone forgot, except the FBI. According to a recent report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, it was that September 2001 news article, based on leaks of sensitive Administration deliberations, that prompted then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to demand an FBI leak investigation that has since taken on a dramatic life of its own. Most recently, the investigation has led to the federal grand jury indictment, unsealed last month, of Pentagon Iran desk officer Larry Franklin on charges involving conspiracy to disclose classified national defense information to unauthorized recipients. It is expected to lead to indictments, under the Espionage Act, of two recently dismissed employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for engaging in a conspiracy to receive and pass on to other unauthorized recipients what they knew to be classified information. They are AIPAC's former director of foreign policy research, Steve Rosen, and his deputy, Iran specialist Keith Weissman. Among those the FBI reportedly wants to interview as a potential witness in its investigation is a Washington Post journalist who was allegedly briefed on some of the classified information by the former AIPAC officials--information those officials had allegedly received from Franklin in an FBI-arranged sting. In addition, Franklin, Rosen and Weissman are all alleged to have relayed classified national defense information to an Israeli Embassy official. It is this latter connection that has raised talk of espionage.

How does an investigation of a leak to the news media turn into an indictment that alleges a conspiracy to disclose US national security information illegally to, among others, a foreign official, with more indictments expected? The evidence available in the Franklin indictment and other sources does not seem to show the intention to commit espionage on behalf of Israel so much as the desire to cultivate Washington alliances that Franklin, Rosen and Weissman considered useful in the promotion of their own policy positions in the US government. As with most administrations, in the Bush Administration leaks have been employed by bureaucratic warriors on all sides of the heated Mideast policy debates to influence sensitive deliberations and take stabs at their opponents. It's worth noting that President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, has been revealed as a suspect in a federal grand jury investigation (the same one in which Times reporter Miller has been jailed) of the circumstances by which a CIA officer's identity was leaked to Washington reporters in an apparent Administration effort to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat critical of the President's Iraq War policy.

In interviewing several sources knowledgeable about the investigation, what emerges is a complex portrait of Washington Mideast policy-making at a critical time, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, when there were near-constant interagency battles over the direction of US policy, not just on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but toward Iran and Iranian-backed forces in Iraq as well. What also emerges is a more detailed picture of the modus operandi of a brilliant and, some say, ruthless bureaucratic infighter at the country's premiere Mideast lobbying group, who was emboldened by his long relationships with figures in and around the Bush Administration and the Washington scene to behave almost as an unofficial diplomatic entity in his own right.

The fact that that brilliant player, Steve Rosen, could become the target of a counterintelligence investigation during this Republican Administration is rich in irony. Several former Rosen associates describe him as a genius at political strategy and subterfuge, the Karl Rove of Jewish-American politics, who helped engineer the lobby group's shift to the right on the American political spectrum; helped broker a strategic alliance between the pro-Israel lobby and Republican far-right legislators, including Senator Jesse Helms, in the 1980s; and who marshaled his organization's resources to conduct de facto intelligence operations of his own.

As former associates and AIPAC officials describe it, those operations were replete with enemies' lists of journalists and public figures. Rosen sent AIPAC interns as spies to take notes on the political views of other members of the small world of Jewish community political activism. One former AIPAC intern told The Nation that he was sent by Rosen to Arab-American conferences disguised as a WASP-y, pro-Palestinian liberal to find out which US Congressional candidates the attending groups were supporting. Former associates recite a list of AIPAC officials with Democratic staff connections on Capitol Hill who were purged from the organization in part, they allege, because of Rosen's strategic efforts to move AIPAC decisively to the right. (Sources close to Rosen say that he wasn't acting on his own in any of these endeavors, but as part of the organization. A source close to AIPAC downplays these activities and suggests that many of them ended years ago.)

Rosen's "entire goal was to shift the organization away from a heavy reliance on Democrats and switch it to Republicans," says M.J. Rosenberg, director of the Washington office of the Israel Policy Forum and the former editor of an AIPAC weekly newsletter who overlapped with Rosen at the organization in the early 1980s. "Why? Because he thought, maybe correctly, that the wave of the future was the right wing of the Republican Party."

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The Nation | Article | The Big Chill | Laura Rozen - page 3

2005-07-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

The Nation | Article | The Big Chill | Laura Rozen: "The Big Chill
Laura Rozen

page 3
Another intriguing issue: The indictment describes Franklin's returning from one of his meetings with Gilon in May 2003 and drafting an "Action Memo to his supervisors, incorporating suggestions made by the FO during the meeting." This suggests the FBI may be interested not only in alleged leaks from Franklin to unauthorized recipients but in the possibility of Franklin's feeding information from those officials back into the system, in an effort to influence US policy toward Iran. This raises the question of whether the government thinks the nature of the conspiracy was not only a matter of unauthorized leaks but also a coordinated effort by Franklin and perhaps his alleged co-conspirators to shape the US policy environment in a kind of agent-of-influence scenario. The US Attorney's office declined to comment on the case.

The Nation has learned that among the documents the FBI has in its possession is a memo written by Rosen in 1983, soon after he joined AIPAC, to his then-boss describing his having been informed about the contents of a classified draft of a White House position paper concerning the Middle East and telling his boss that their inside knowledge of the draft might enable the group to influence the final document. The significance would seem to be an effort by the FBI to establish a pattern of Rosen's accessing classified information to which he was not authorized, not just from Franklin but over many years. Rosen's attorneys declined to comment on the allegation.

Stephen Green, a Vermont state legislator and former UN official who in the 1980s pursued independent scholarship critical of Israeli-US relations including by requesting through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) State Department documentation on counterintelligence probes, says the FBI's concerns about Rosen pre-date the September 2001 news leak incident. Green says in meetings with FBI investigators last year, "I was told by investigators that his name has showed up in wiretaps more than once over time," Green told The Nation. What's more, Green says, he believes the FBI considers Franklin only a little fish useful to getting Rosen.

Former FBI attorney Harvey Rishikof says that both theories, that this investigation is about leaking, or that it is motivated by graver counter- intelligence concerns, could be true. "They are not necessarily opposing theories," Rishikof told The Nation. "If you are worried about counterintelligence issues, and counterintelligence issues are also related to leak issues, so that individuals are using strategic leaks basically for counterintelligence purposes, you then link up the two threads...If you were the government, the leaks then become the method by which you are able to shut down what appears to be a counterintelligence problem."

The full picture of the government's case against Rosen will not emerge until an indictment is handed down, assuming there even is one. It is not even clear how he originally appeared on the FBI's radar screen. But if prosecutors focus on Rosen's alleged long-term cultivation of executive branch sources, who might have improperly shared with him privileged information about US national security deliberations, it's a twist on what we understand as a typical spy story, because such behavior, at least in its unclassified form, is the very currency of the capital: Washington lobbyists cultivating inside sources and trading information with them to influence policy.

Whether it was the FBI's intention or not, one result of the Franklin/AIPAC investigation, along with the jailing of Miller in the Wilson investigation, has been the fortressing of the executive branch; the danger is that this could enable the Bush Administration to shape policies with even less consultation from the public and Congress.

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The Nation | Article | The Big Chill | Laura Rozen - page 2

2005-07-15T06:57:00.000-07:00

The Nation | Article | The Big Chill | Laura Rozen: "article | posted July 14, 2005 (web only)
The Big Chill
Laura Rozen

page 2
While such alleged efforts have made Rosen an object of controversy among some more left leaning members of the politically-active Washington Jewish policy community, even those who are not his fans do not believe Rosen is a spy. They describe a man motivated not so much by concern for Israel as a quest for behind-the-scenes power in Washington. "Steve Rosen doesn't give a damn about Israel," a Jewish community activist who requested anonymity explained. "These are game players. For them, it's all about the game."

For Rosen, that game became focused on Iran some time ago, in the early 1990s. According to former AIPAC sources, the reasons included a request by then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that AIPAC to stay out of delicate US-Israel negotiations over the Mideast peace process.

"From...when Rabin came in, Steve's mandate has been to go after Iran, largely because Rabin didn't want him messing around with the peace process," says one veteran lobbyist who requested anonymity. "Steve took it and ran with it beyond anyone's expectations. So what comes out of it is that you have a [US] Iran policy that AIPAC is driving. And this went well into the last [Clinton] Administration.

"Then along comes a new Administration that is made up of the same neocons that were promoting the [hawkish] Iran policy," the veteran lobbyist continued, "but this Administration was divided down the center.... On the one hand, you have the neocons...on the other side, you have Powell and Richard Armitage and the State department [and the CIA], who want to try to open up a dialogue. One is for confrontation, and one is for dialogue.... So the neocons, the Iran hawks, know that they have got a natural ally...at other think tanks around town who feel the same way they do.... They also have AIPAC, which has made [Iran] its number-one issue.... My guess is that they went to AIPAC and the others with the same message: 'You have friends we don't have. Help us to persuade them to see it our way.'"

Persuading political heavyweights to see things his way was what Rosen was all about. Sources tell The Nation that Rosen has a long history of cultivating executive branch sources [see Rozen, "Hall of Mirrors," posted here in May], milking them for information, boasting about his access to AIPAC's funders and leadership, and engaging in strategic press leaks as a regular part of his efforts to influence policy and engage in bureaucratic warfare.

Indeed, the unsealed twenty-page Franklin indictment offers a fascinating peek into the government's view of the Pentagon analyst and the AIPAC officials cultivating one another, presumably attempting to tip the Bush Administration toward a harder line against Iran. For the AIPAC officials, Franklin--who often appears frustrated at bureaucratic obstacles to this harder line-seems to have offered grumbling and insights on the bitter interagency Iran policy debates inside the Administration. For Franklin, the AIPAC officials must have seemed like sympathetic political sophisticates, freed from the tyranny of working in the government bureaucracy but with impressive influence among high-level officials in the White House and key members of Congress. Indeed, in a fascinating reversal of the ordinary official-lobbyist relationship, it appears from the indictment that Franklin thought Rosen could bypass the bureaucracy and take Franklin's information straight to the White House, and possibly "put in a good word for him" to get a job at the National Security Council.

But the Franklin indictment raises a key question: What exactly is the nature of the conspiracy the government believes it has uncovered? The kind of information the AIPAC officials seemed most interested in wasn't intelligence but policy information: who in the bureaucracy was arguing which position on Iran, who were the obstacles to the adoption of hard-line policies and the like.

"I don't think anyone's spying for anyone," says a Jewish community activist, no fan of Rosen's, who asked not to be named. "Rosen is not working for Israel, because he was working for a separate sovereign entity [AIPAC]. Franklin just wanted to be a policy nerd, to advocate for a policy he thought wasn't getting enough attention."

But there are seeming anomalies to this benign interpretation of the relationship to be found in the Franklin indictment as well. The most interesting and surprising part of the indictment describes fourteen meetings between Franklin and an "FO" (foreign officer), widely reported to be Israeli Embassy political officer Naor Gilon. They met in the open, at the Pentagon Officers' Athletic Club and Washington-area coffee shops and restaurants, between 2002 and 2004. The last part of the indictment asserts that at some point Franklin disclosed to Gilon "classified United States government information relating to a weapons test conducted by a Middle Eastern country," presumably Iran. It is hard to discount such an unauthorized disclosure to a foreign government official as an ordinary leak."

dAPFN - DAVID CORN - It's Here! Newsweek Does Nail Rove

2005-07-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

APFN: "DAVID CORN
[LEAKAGE] It's Here! Newsweek Does Nail Rove
Sun Jul 10, 2005 15:44
64.140.158.80

July 10, 2005
It's Here! Newsweek Does Nail Rove
http://www.davidcorn.com/

The Newsweek story I described below is out. Reporter Michael Isikoff has obtained a copy of an email that Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper sent his bureau chief, Michael Duffy, on July 11, 2003--three days before conservative columnist Bob Novak first published the leak that outed CIA officer Valerie Wilson/Plame. In that email, Cooper wrote that he had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." "Agency" means CIA. Read the full Newsweek piece here, and read my item below on why it is so important. There now is clear-cut evidence that Rove was involved in--if not the chief architect of--the actions that led to the outing of Plame/Wilson. If he's not in severe legal trouble, he ought to be in political peril. I explain in full the ramifications of this smoking email below.

Posted by David Corn at 09:05 AM | Comments (27)
July 09, 2005
New Explosive Rove Revelation To Come? Time to Frog-March?

Time to get ready for the Karl Rove frog-march?

I don't usually log on Saturday evenings. But I've received information too good not to share immediately. It was only yesterday that I was bemoaning the probability that--after a week of apparent Rove-related revelations--it might be a while before any more news emerged about the Plame/CIA leak. Yet tonight I received this as-solid-as-it-gets tip: on Sunday Newsweek is posting a story that nails Rove. The newsmagazine has obtained documentary evidence that Rove was indeed a key source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper and that Rove--prior to the publication of the Bob Novak column that first publicly disclosed Valerie Wilson/Plame as a CIA official--told Cooper that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife apparently worked at the CIA and was involved in Joseph Wilson's now-controversial trip to Niger.

To be clear, this new evidence does not necessarily mean slammer-time for Rove. Under the relevant law, it's only a crime for a government official to identify a covert intelligence official if the government official knows the intelligence officer is under cover, and this documentary evidence, I'm told, does not address this particular point. But this new evidence does show that Rove--despite his lawyers claim that Rove "did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA"--did reveal to Cooper in a deep-background conversation that Wilson's wife was in the CIA. No wonder special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursued Cooper so fiercely. And Fitzgerald must have been delighted when Time magazine--over Cooper's objection--surrendered Cooper's emails and notes, which, according to a previous Newsweek posting by Michael Isikoff, named Rove as Cooper's source. In court on Wednesday, Fitzgerald said that following his receipt of Cooper's emails and notes "it is clear to us we need [Cooper's] testimony perhaps more so than in the past." This was a clue that Fitzgerald had scored big when he obtained the Cooper material.

This new evidence could place Rove in serious political, if not legal, jeopardy (or, at least it should). If what I am told is true, this is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it could gather on Joseph Wilson--even classified information related to national security--to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking a national security secret to a reporter for political ends. What would George W. Bush do about that?

On September 27, 2003--after the news broke that the Justice Department, responding to a request from the CIA, was investigating the Plame/CIA leak--White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of the Plame/CIA leak, "That is not the way this White House operates, and no one would be authorized to do such a thing." He also declared that the allegation that Rove was involved in this leak was "a ridiculous suggestion, and it is simply not true." Days later, Bush issued a straightforward statement about the Plame/CIA leak:

There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. If there's leaks out of my administration, I want to know who it is, and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.

Perhaps Bush won't have to "take care of" Rove if this new evidence does not lead to a prosecutable violation of the law. But Bush also called on any government official with knowledge of the leak to "come forward and speak out." Has Rove done so? No. So it seems he violated a presidential command. Would Bush be obliged to fire him for insubordination? And there's another key point to consider: whether Rove told the truth when he testified to Fitzgerald's grand jury. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has acknowledged that Rove appeared before the grand jury, and Luskin has said that Rove did speak to Cooper prior to the publication of the Novak column. But what did Rove tell Fitzgerald and the grand jury about this conversation with Cooper? And--here's the big question--does Rove's account jibe with the new documentary evidence that Newsweek is scheduled to disclose. If it does not, Fitzgerald would have a good start on a perjury charge against Rove.

At a public meeting in the summer of 2003, Joseph Wilson, responding to a question about the leak, quipped that it would be interesting "to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." He then had to pull back from that comment and concede he had no evidence to support his hunch that Rove was one of the leakers. (By the way, Novak cited two unnamed Bush administration officials when he published the Plame/CIA leak.) With Newsweek's latest article, we may be getting closer to frog-marching time.
http://www.davidcorn.com/"

Haaretz - Israel News - FBI Has been Wiretapping the Israeli Embassy in DC

2005-07-09T07:05:00.000-07:00

Haaretz - Israel News - Something is bothering the FBI: "One doesn't have to be an expert detective to understand that some of the material against Franklin was also based on wiretapping of the Israeli embassy in Washington. This is especially obvious from a conversation conducted by Steve Rosen of AIPAC with the Israeli embassy, in order to transmit information that came from Franklin, regarding the intention of the Iranians to harm Israelis who are operating in Kurdistan, Iraq. This information was transmitted by Franklin, who was convinced by the FBI to participate in a 'sting operation' against two AIPAC representatives."

Article Links New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Harold Rhode, Bernard Lewis, and Ahmed Chalabi

2005-07-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

: "Saddam's Secret Jewish Archives
Moment Magazine, Washington
http://www.momentmag.com/features/feat1.html

In the basement of Iraqi intelligence headquarters, Torahs and books from a lost community are rescued from three feet of water.

It all began with a tip like the one that led the Americans to where Uday and Qusay Hussein were holed up in Mosul. Except that this was a tip about a rumored seventh-century Talmud in the basement of the Mukhabarat headquarters in Baghdad. The Mukhabarat was Saddam Hussein’s feared secret service, and the tipster was the head of the Israel-Palestinian section of the Mukhabarat. The massive Mukhabarat headquarters in the heart of Baghdad was an early target of Allied precision bombing.
The Americans decided to investigate but were careful enough to initiate the investigation with a team searching for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). “Embedded” with the WMD team chosen for the task was New York Times reporter Judith Miller who decided that since they would be looking for Jewish documents, they should take with them someone who knew something about Judaism. So she called Harold Rhode, an Orthodox Jew who was a policy analyst with the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. Rhode was already in Baghdad, speaks Arabic as well as Hebrew, and is knowledgeable about Islam as well as Judaism. He is a protégé of Bernard Lewis, who dedicated his most recent book, The Crisis of Islam, to Rhode.
When the WMD team, Miller and Rhode and the tipster, arrived at the Mukhabarat headquarters, looters were swarming through the building. “It was eerie,” says Rhode. “The building could have collapsed at any moment and there was a live 2,000-pound bomb which could have exploded at any time.”
The basement, which housed the Israel and “Jew” departments as well as a torture chamber, was flooded with three feet of water. The unexploded bomb had hit the building and the force of the impact had shattered the water pipes. “It smelled like putrid water,” recalls Rhode.
Wearing miner’s lights and anti-WMD suits to protect themselves from possible radioactivity, the team began their search. There were no WMDs but the first thing they found in the Israel section was a model of the Knesset in Jerusalem. Above a map on the wall that showed where the 39 Iraqi scuds landed in Israel during the 1991 Gulf War a sign in Arabic asked, “Who is going to send off the 40th?” The team also found a Soviet photograph of Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona.
Across a hall from the Israel section was the Jew section. “Torah scrolls were just strewn all over the place. I could understand why they had the Israel section—but thousands of Jewish holy books? I was angry at the total lack of respect for Iraq’s Jewish heritage, all that is left of a dead community,” recalls Rhode. “I had seen so many dastardly things in the country that I wasn’t surprised by what levels Saddam and his henchmen would stoop to humiliate and murder. Nothing was surprising—that was what was so amazing.”
Rhode quickly took charge of the rescue operation. The first task was simply to pump the water from the basement. For this, Rhode needed workers. And for this Rhode needed money. Rhode’s first call was to Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), whom Rhode greatly admired and knew well from over a decade of working together. Chalabi, from a prominent Iraqi banking family, returned to Iraq at the end of the war, after living in exile for 45 years. Chalabi, a Shiite Muslim, is in turn a great admirer of the former Jewish community of Iraq, and he made the first contribution from his own funds to finance the draining of the Mukhabarat basement. Rhode then contacted people in the United States who led him to Lehman Brothers investment banker and philanthropist Harvey Krueger who rounded up and supplied the money needed to continue the operation.
When the water was drained out, the treasure trove could be assessed for the first time. One large area of the basement was devoted to documents about Israel. A separate long hall contained materials apparently confiscated from Iraqi synagogues. The variety of books and documents was bewildering. The situation was reminiscent of the Cairo Genizah, from which thousands of medieval documents were emptied in the late 19th century by Solomon Schechter, then of Cambridge University and later head of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
Except that these documents were in the basement of Saddam Hussein’s secret service headquarters. Imagine finding a Torah scroll in such a place!
No one on the team knew anything about how to save the soaked Torahs and books. Rhode called Israel for expert help but not before committing what he considers a sinful technical transgression, something sacrilegious. “I rolled out a Torah scroll on the ground in order to help it dry. My choice was to let it dry out, then roll it up in a scroll and hope that afterward it could be saved or to let it harden. I am still thinking about what I did.” Drying the wooden Torah case, a tiq, used by Sephardic Jews, was easier.
The Mukhabarat headquarters also yielded a variety of other holy books, including a copy of the book of Numbers in Hebrew published in Jerusalem in 1972, a Megillat Esther of uncertain date, a Hagaddah published in Baghdad and edited by the Chief Rabbi of Baghdad (Hakham Ezra Dangoor). The oldest book was the third section of the Hebrew Bible, the Writings or Ketuvim, containing books like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Lamentations, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles. It was published in Venice in 1568.
Another oddity was a copy of Pirke Avot, or Ethics of the Fathers, published in Livorno, Italy, in 1928, with an interlinear commentary written in Baghdadi-Judeo Arabic but written with Hebrew letters.
A luach, a calendar with the lists of duties and prayers for each holy day, was printed in Baghdad in 1972 and the frontispiece was the ruler’s portrait.
Apparently, Saddam confiscated entire synagogue libraries. There were thousands and thousands of books. In addition to books printed in Vienna and Livorno and Jerusalem, other books were printed in Izmir, Turkey and Vilna. Obviously the Iraqi Jewish community had wide contacts with Jewish communities all over the world. These items told the story of Iraqi Jews.
The story began in 721 B.C.E., when the Assyrians conquered Samaria, eventually deporting 27,290 of the cream of Israelite society to the Mesopotamia heartland, according to Chronicles. Then in 586 B.C.E., Nebuchadnazzer exiled thousands of Jews to Babylon. These Jews created a vibrant community that was one of the two main sources of Mishnaic and Talmudic learning and lore. “For close on four millennia the fortunes of the Jewish people, the growth of their religious beliefs, and the shaping of their culture were, in one way or another, inextricably linked with the ‘land of the twin rivers,’ now known as Iraq,” wrote Nissim Rejwan, a Baghdad-born Jew and author of The Jews of Iraq: 3,000 Years of History and Culture.
When Baghdad was established in 762 C.E., Jews were among the first residents. They lived in a Jewish quarter and on the west bank of the city—in Al-Karkh, its commercial and industrial center. Baghdad quickly became a major trading and intellectual center in the Islamic world, in part because the ruling Islamic caliphs included Jews in the political, business and artistic life of the city. Some of the rulers even gave Jews autonomy over their own affairs; Jews were ruled by Jewish exhilarchs who traced their roots back to King David.
The fortunes of Jews in Mesopotamia rose and fell throughout the centuries, but generally the community thrived, even after the invasion of Genghis Khan and later, Ottoman rule. The Jewish population swelled in the 15th and 16th centuries when large numbers of Sephardic Jews who had been expelled from Spain immigrated.
When the British entered Baghdad in 1917 there were 80,000 registered Jews out of a total population of 202,000. During the British Mandate, Jews served in parliament and a Jew was minister of finance. Conditions quickly deteriorated, however, when Iraq gained independence in 1932 and became a haven for Pan-Arab nationalists and attacks on Jews escalated. In 1941, about 130 Jews were tortured and murdered and 1,000 were injured by mobs incited by Prime Minister Rashid Ali, a Nazi sympathizer.
When Israel declared its independence in 1948, martial law was declared in Iraq. Being a “Zionist” constituted a crime—punishment was seven years in prison or, in some cases, death. The law was rigorously enforced; fines up to $40,000 were imposed on wealthy Jews. During the first three years of the Jewish state, approximately 125,000 Iraqi Jews emigrated to Israel. They were forced to leave property behind, which of course was confiscated. By 1952, barely 6,000 remained in Iraq, living under difficult conditions and, for a time, were forbidden to leave the country. After the Six Day War arrests became more widespread and the number of Jews continued to dwindle—to about 2,500.
The Ba’ath party came into power in 1963 and in 1969, nine Jews accused of espionage were publicly hanged in the streets of Baghdad to the riotous cheers of the populace. When Saddam Hussein took power in 1979, he continued to persecute Jews. In 1996 only 120 Jews were reported to be left. When the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society came to Baghdad after Saddam’s fall, they found 34 Jews, mostly old and sick. They spoke of their “inherited fear.” Other estimates go as high as 70.
The basement treasure trove that Saddam confiscated also included miscellaneous communal records from the 1920s through 1953—marriage records, lists of male Jewish residents, school records, financial records, applications for admission to the University. These may ultimately prove to be the most valuable documents in the Jewish collection. They reflect the nature and quality of Jewish life in the Baghdad community at the time.
Preserving all these documents will be a challenge. Initially they were simply taken out and left to dry in the hot sun. When Rhode made contact with conservators in the United States, he was told that they should be immediately frozen. Unfortunately, there were no freezers available. They were simply taken to INC headquarters where they were left to dry. They were placed in 27 aluminum trunks and stored in a freezer truck in Baghdad. In late August, they were flown to a restoration company in Fort Worth, Texas with the permission of the Iraqi Cultural Ministry.
What is to be done with the documents and books? The answer is unclear. Recently the American government has taken over the matter, but the negotiations and resolutions are in flux and hard information is difficult to obtain. Reportedly, the U.S. National Archives is preparing to send a team to Baghdad to assist in conservation. One of the trickiest questions is the ultimate disposition of the trove. To whom do they belong? Clearly, to the Iraqi Jewish community. But the former Iraqi Jewish community is scattered all over—the United States, London, Israel, Turkey. In effect, there is no longer an Iraqi Jewish community.
“Their final resting place is to be determined,” says Rhode. “Wherever it goes, it is the historical legacy of 3,000 years of Iraqi Jewish community, the overwhelming majority of whose heirs are in Israel.”
And where and how will they be studied? And who will provide the funds? There are no answers at this time. Perhaps the more interesting question is: What does this tell us about Saddam Hussein? What in the world was this stuff doing in Mukhabarat headquarters? Why were these documents so important to Saddam and his henchmen that they were confiscated and stored in this most sensitive location? All that seems clear is that it reflects Saddam’s paranoia and the depth of his hatred for Jews and Zionists"

Perle and Wolfowitz Scuttled an Iraqi Peace Offer

2005-07-04T16:33:00.000-07:00

The Peace Offer that Wasn't: "The Peace Offer that Wasn't

DefenseWatch
This article is provided courtesy of DefenseWatch, the official magazine for Soldiers For The Truth (SFTT), a grass-roots educational organization started by a small group of concerned veterans and citizens to inform the public, the Congress, and the media on the decline in readiness of our armed forces. Inspired by the outspoken idealism of retired Colonel David Hackworth, SFTT aims to give our service people, veterans, and retirees a clear voice with the media, Congress, the public and their services.

November 13, 2003

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By Robert G. Williscroft

The story first broke on Nov. 5 on the World Wide Web, reported by Newsweek, ABCnews.com and Knight Ridder Newspapers, but nobody paid attention until the next day when The New York Times featured it on the front page above the fold. According to the Times, which echoed the earlier reports by ABC and KnightRidder, a legitimate peace overture directly from the highest levels of the Baghdad regime had been presented to the U.S. government just days before the conflict began.

The Times strongly implied that the Bush administration wanted nothing less than a complete capitulation of Saddam Hussein and a military occupation of Iraq, and so rejected this apparently genuine offer.

Congressional Democrats and especially the would-be presidential candidates vying against each other for the privilege of being defeated by Bush were all over this story. It appeared to be a made-to-order opportunity to legitimize some of their more extreme accusations against the Bush White House and the Rumsfeld-led Defense Department.

As Newsweek reported the story, about a year ago, Saddam Hussein's chief of intelligence, Lt. Gen. Tahir Jalil Habbush, supposedly contacted unnamed CIA sources through Syrian intermediaries with a peace offer from Hussein that included, among other things, a willingness to allow U.S. troops into Iraq, and eventually free elections. When the CIA attempted to follow up by arranging meetings with Iraqi officials in Morocco, the Iraqis were a no-show.

Then a Lebanese businessman, Imad El-Hage, apparently contacted the Defense Department's Michael Maloof, with essentially the same offer. According to Newsweek, El-Hage ran American Underwriters Group, a Beirut-based insurance conglomerate that did extensive business with Charles Taylor, the deposed Liberian dictator. Maloof was investigating the connections between al Qaeda and various Arab governments. He was known for his hawkish views.

The story then becomes convoluted and difficult to follow. The bottom line is that El-Hage's offer eventually was presented to Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, who was an advisor to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary (Policy) Douglas Feith, and to Jaymie Durnan, special assistant to Wolfowitz. As reported by Newsweek, Durnan and El-Hage actually met on Jan. 28, 2003, but according to Durnan, "It was a nonevent."

Then in February, Maloof notified the Pentagon that El-Hage had contacted him again, claiming to have met with Saddam aides Habbush, Tariq Aziz, Amer Saadi and Naji Sabri. According to Newsweek, El-Hage told Maloof that these men wanted to discuss with senior U.S. officials "...Iraqi concessions including support for any U.S. proposals for an Arab/Israel peace plan, cooperation with the United States against terrorists and giving the United States "1st priority" [sic] for Iraqi oil rights." And later on included additional information that "...included a plan that would allow the deployment of 5,000 U.S. troops - and possibly other experts - in Iraq as weapons inspectors and a commitment to conduct free elections at some point in the near future."

On the surface, these overtures seem like something the United States should have taken seriously, and followed up with further meetings and eventual direct contacts with Iraqi officials. The Times, ABC, and Knight-Ridder, however, seem to have glossed over important information that casts significant doubt on El-Hage's credibility, although the Times and ABC mention it in passing. The day after El-Hage met with Durnan, as he was boarding a flight from Dulles to Lebanon, he was stopped and questioned by U.S. Customs investigators because he had an undeclared .45 cal. semi-automatic pistol and four stun guns in his checked baggage. Since he was traveling under a Liberian Diplomatic Passport, they were unable to hold him.

Subsequently, Durnan was investigated by the FBI, and Maloof lost his high-level security clearance. Eventually both were cleared, and Maloof's security clearance was restored. The White House and Pentagon judged El-Hage's offer to be not legitimate.

As quoted by Newsweek, a senior unnamed U.S. intelligence official said in response to their questions: "During the run-up to the war there were a wide variety of people sending signals that some Iraqis might have an interest in negotiation. These signals came via a broad range of foreign intelligence services, other governments, third parties, charlatans and independent actors. Every lead that was at all plausible - and some that weren't - were followed up. In the end, we were aware of no one in a position to make any deal anywhere near acceptable to the United States."

Despite such credible information that was readily available to anyone who bothered to dig a little, the Times, ABC, and Knight-Ridder chose to report the story in a manner that cast serious doubts on the Bush administration. Only Newsweek reported the story in context so that readers could properly understand what had really happened, and why the administration chose to ignore the "offer."

And this still begs the question of why this particular story hit the wires on Nov. 5 in the first place.

Robert G. Williscroft is a DefenseWatch Senior Editor. He can be reached at defensewatch@argee.net. ©2003 DefenseWatch. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com."

The rush to invade Iraq - the inside story Pt. II

2005-07-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

The rush to invade Iraq - the inside story Pt. II: "The rush to invade Iraq - the inside story Pt. II
6/22/2005 7:00:00 PM GMT

For months memos flew between the Pentagon, the State Department, , the CIA, and the White House

In the run-up to the Iraq war, one theme is repeated again and again. From the CIA analysts pressured to tailor their intelligence to fit the Bush administration's aims to the diplomats who were steamrollered by the White House's blinkered view that Saddam was hiding wmds, many officials felt nothing they said, no fact they could present, could possibly dissuade Bush from war.

For quite some time the invasion of Iraq was an idea. It took root after President George Bush's decided to end the 1991 Gulf War abruptly, to pull back the troops that were slaughtering Iraqi soldiers by the thousands, and to end the headlong rush north toward Baghdad.

During the 1990s the ousting of Saddam's regime was championed by a circle of neoconservatives, led by Richard Perle, the former assistant secretary of defense for international-security policy under President Reagan, and Paul Wolfowitz, an undersecretary of defense for policy for George Bush senior and now head of the World Bank.

The neoconservatives first gained notice for their hard-line views on dealing with the Soviet Union during George Bush snr's administration, in which Cheney served as secretary of defense. During the Clinton years, the neocons, quite a few of whom concerned themselves with hard-line defense policies for Israel, remained tied to one another and to Cheney through a number of right-wing think tanks and institutes one of which the most influential of is the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

In 1992, Wolfowitz's office drafted a document called the Defense Planning Guidance, which claimed the U.S. might be faced with the question of whether to take military action to prevent the use or development of WMD-a precursor to the so-called Bush Doctrine, supposedly formulated by the current president. In 1998, Perle and Wolfowitz, along with Donald Rumsfeld and 15 others, sent a much-talked-about letter to President Clinton urging regime change in Iraq and a more aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East.

With Cheney as vice president, the neo-cons influence grew in the current administration to such an extent that those unsympathetic to their hawkish views talk about the existence of "a cabal", a clique.

In addition to Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, one of Wolfowitz's top aides in the first Bush administration, became Cheney's chief of staff, his national-security adviser, and an adviser to Bush. William Luti had been a military adviser to Newt Gingrich before working on Cheney's staff and eventually shifting to the Pentagon as chief of Middle Eastern policy. Stephen J. Hadley, a former member of the George Bush administration, was made deputy to Condoleezza Rice. Douglas Feith, who had served as special counsel to Richard Perle when Perle was an assistant secretary of defense in the 1980s, was appointed undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon, and David Wurmser, a close associate of Perle's, became Cheney's Middle East adviser.

The neoconservative world-view is summarized in "An End to Evil", a book co-written by Perle and former Bush speechwriter David Frum. Their dream, they write, is "a world at peace; a world governed by law; a world in which all peoples are free to find their own destinies." Perle and Frum believe such a world will be brought into being "by American armed might."

Even among Republican hawks, there were widely differing views about how to oust Saddam. In 2001, in the early months of the Bush administration, everyone had a plan. Colin Powell's State Department favored a program of international pressure in unison with the UN and its weapons inspectors; Wolfowitz and his fellow neocons all but sneered at Powell and his dovish tendencies, ridiculing the UN as the do-nothing pawn of Third World nobodies and Euro-peaceniks.

The CIA considered what some called the "magic bullet" plan, that is, an assassination or coup d'etat. The INC and Ahmad Chalabi floated their own plan, a partial invasion of southern Iraq that would supposedly lead to a popular revolution. At President Bush's first National Security Council (NSC) meeting, on January 30, 2001, a decision was made to formulate a coherent Iraq strategy.

For months memos flew between the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the White House, but the process swiftly became bogged down in bitter interagency disagreements. In such cases, it is the national-security adviser's job to forge a common line. This, say numerous officials, is something Condoleezza Rice was unwilling to do.

"She has no opinions of her own," says an insider. "Her supreme concern is preserving her own relationship with the president. She's a chief of staff, not an advocate, until she's sure he knows what he wants to do." The result is "there's a tier missing in the foreign-policy wedding cake. A subject will get up to a certain level and then just stick until Bush decides."

The Bush administration was stuck in a gridlock on the Iraq policy when 9/11 occurred.

On the morning of 9/11 seven members of Rumsfeld's neocon group, officials who would wield enormous influence over Iraq policy in the coming months, were busy in Europe and the Middle East. The next morning, Wednesday the 12th, they boarded an air-force plane that had been sent to ferry them back to Washington.

"Just about the whole Defense Department policy shop concerned with issues linked to international terrorism ended up on that plane," says Douglas Feith, the 50-year-old undersecretary of defense for policy. A colleague of Perle's since the Reagan administration, he is a staunch supporter of Israel and a longtime opponent of a Palestinian state. "…(several of us) discussed the fact that the president had already said things which implied we were at war. People forget what a big deal that was. If we were at war, who was the enemy? That's the basic level of the questions we started with. What would be our war aims?"

But to Feith, Luti, and their traveling companions, it also seemed that Afghanistan was not the final stop. "Obviously we had Afghanistan in our minds straightaway," Luti says. "That was our immediate concern..."

Iraq was not on the table as a matter of detailed military planning at the time but it was on the table as a concept.

Upon arriving on U.S. soil, the group was informed that the president was due at the Pentagon where they were to meet him.

President Bush, accompanied by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, instructed the gathering to think in the broadest possible terms. "The president said that this was a war, and that it was the Pentagon's responsibility," Feith says.

On September 15, President Bush gathered his closest advisers at Camp David to discuss the shape of the coming war. Much of their discussion dealt with Afghanistan. But during a session that morning, according to Bob Woodward's 2002 book, "Bush at War", Wolfowitz advocated an attack on Iraq, perhaps even before an attack on Afghanistan. There was a 10 to 50 percent chance that Iraq had been involved in 9/11, he argued, concluding that Saddam's regime might succumb easily to an American attack-in contrast to the difficulties involved in going to war in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Colin Powell was appalled.

To attack Iraq without clear evidence of Saddam's involvement in September 11 would drive America's allies away, he argued. Much better to go after bin Laden and the Taliban. If that went well, it would only enhance America's ability to oust Saddam later.

In front of his advisers at Camp David, and in later interviews, Bush indicated that he supported Powell's argument. During the lunch break, the president sent a message to Wolfowitz and the other neocons, indicating that he did not wish to hear any more about Iraq that day.

But, according to Richard Perle, Wolfowitz had planted a seed. Bush told Perle at Camp David that once Afghanistan had been dealt with, it would be Iraq's turn.

By Monday September 17th, Wolfowitz and his neocon colleagues had already started studying ways to justify an eventual attack on Iraq.

The next day, Perle convened a two-day meeting of the Defense Policy Board, a group that advises the Pentagon. The board's meetings amount to a form of "organized brainstorming" with the defense secretary, his key lieutenants, and a group of well-informed outsiders, all of whom are cleared to have access to classified intelligence. The 30 members, appointed by the secretary of defense, have traditionally represented a broad spectrum of political beliefs. Under Rumsfeld, however, the board has taken a hard turn to the right, with several Democrats being ousted.

The group met in Rumsfeld's conference room at the Pentagon. After a CIA briefing on the 9/11 attacks, Perle introduced two guest speakers. The first was Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, a longtime associate of Cheney's and Wolfowitz's. Lewis told the meeting that America must respond to 9/11 with a show of strength: to do otherwise would be taken in the "Islamic world as a sign of weakness". At the same time, he said, America should support "democratic reformers" in the Middle East. "Such as," he said, turning to the second of Perle's guest speakers, "my friend here, Dr. Chalabi."

Though Chalabi enjoyed powerful support, there were reasons to keep him at a distance. In particular, he had been convicted in 1992 of embezzling tens of millions of dollars from Petra Bank, Jordan's third-largest, which he had started. He fled the country before he could be imprisoned. When it came to discussing who should replace Saddam, State Department and CIA officials soon came to use the abbreviation: "ABC-anyone but Chalabi."

During the later part of the second day, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld listened carefully to the debate. "Rumsfeld was getting confirmation of his own instincts ... " Perle says. "He seemed neither surprised nor discomfited by the idea of taking action against Iraq.""

Haaretz - FBI Wiretapping of the Israeli embassy in Washington - AIPAC Spy Scandsal

2005-07-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

Haaretz - Israel News - Something is bothering the FBI: "Something is bothering the FBI

By Ze'ev Schiff

It is a mistake to think the FBI has concluded its investigations after indictments were served against Pentagon employee Lawrence Franklin for leaking classified security material to people close to Israel. Franklin, an intelligence investigator and an expert on Iran, has been linked to Naor Gilon, a diplomat at the Israeli embassy, and to two senior officials in the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Apparently the FBI investigations have widened, and are now focusing on another Pentagon official and his connections. All this is taking place against the background of the current debate in the United States, in which the FBI is being blamed for its failure to discover the terror attack by Osama bin Laden's men in time.

It is clear that something is disturbing those in charge of the FBI investigation regarding Israel and those close to Israel in the United States. Many of those being interrogated are Jews. The prosecution was cautious in its wording of the indictment sheet against Franklin and Israel was not accused of intelligence gathering in the United States, which can be defined as espionage. On the other hand, it mentions that Franklin had met with AIPAC representatives. There is also mention of the fact that Franklin received a gift certificate from Naor Gilon.

If this is not espionage, which is a groundless accusation, maybe the FBI is disturbed by the Israeli influence that is organized by a government body in Washington. Maybe that is how we can explain the "conversation" conducted by FBI investigators with former Mossad man Uzi Arad, who was also political adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu when he was prime minister. Some claim the most recent proceedings are tainted with a desire to undermine the group of neoconservatives in the Pentagon.

One doesn't have to be an expert detective to understand that some of the material against Franklin was also based on wiretapping of the Israeli embassy in Washington. This is especially obvious from a conversation conducted by Steve Rosen of AIPAC with the Israeli embassy, in order to transmit information that came from Franklin, regarding the intention of the Iranians to harm Israelis who are operating in Kurdistan, Iraq. This information was transmitted by Franklin, who was convinced by the FBI to participate in a "sting operation" against two AIPAC representatives.

The prosecution is now also being cautious about making accusations against AIPAC. The moment AIPAC declared it had severed itself from its two senior employees, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who have not yet been indicted, AIPAC attorneys were told there is no accusation of the Israeli lobby. But even a relatively naive person will conclude that keeping track of senior AIPAC employees has been going on for several years, even before Franklin was suspected of contacts with them.

Why was it necessary to conduct a "sting operation" against the Jewish lobby that was designed to reveal not only how the information flows but that also included deliberate steps to trip up AIPAC? It is clear that the FBI is aiming to create conflict between Steve Rosen and the organization in which he has worked for some 23 years. Perhaps it hopes that Rosen, in his anger, will point to others, so that the FBI will be able to widen its investigations. The FBI has made an effort to talk with wealthy Jews as well, apparently in order to deter them from supporting Rosen financially.

If the Israeli security apparatus were to use FBI methods when it comes to the leaking of classified material to American representatives, indictments would have to be served against dozens of Israeli officials who feel themselves too free in their conversations with the representatives of Israel's greatest ally. The affair is far from the climax and it will certainly draw a great deal of attention, one reason being the future publication of books on this subject."