NSA op seeks to expose Arafat
Appeals to Kissinger in latest whistle-blowing effort
Posted: March 13, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
A former National Security Agency Palestinian communications analyst in the Middle East is appealing to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in his latest effort to blow the whistle on Yasser Arafat's role in the murder of two U.S. diplomats in Sudan in 1973.
James J. Welsh, a former NSA Palestinian analyst, broke his vow of silence last year to charge the U.S. government was hiding recordings of Arafat planning and directing the murders of U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel, diplomat Charge d'Affaires George Curtis Moore and Belgian Guy Eid March 2, 1973.
After telling his story first in WorldNetDaily, Welsh took his campaign a step further last spring – urging U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and all members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to demand the executive branch find the tapes, transcripts and summaries of the radio transmissions between Arafat and his Black September terrorists and make them public.
"Over the years I have kept my silence about what I know about this tragic episode," Welsh told WorldNetDaily at the time. "But recently I began to wonder how recent administrations could overlook something as terrible as this in our dealings with Yasser Arafat. I have decided that my oaths of secrecy must give way to my sense of right and wrong."
Welsh sent a letter detailing his charges to all members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 27. He sent another to Hyde March 31 after reading of the congressman's call to re-examine U.S. policy toward the Palestinian Authority headed by Arafat. Despite the raging violence in the Mideast, the pleas by Welsh were met with stony silence.
Now Welsh is appealing to the conscience – and, perhaps, ego – of Kissinger.
"There is not much point in beating around the bush," Welsh writes in his letter to Kissinger. "I was the NSA Palestinian communications analyst at the time (and had been since 1970). I was one of the three persons who drafted the warning message for the Khartoum Embassy that was downgraded to routine priority and arrived too late to alert our embassy of the impending operation. ... We both know the truth of Arafat's involvement in the murders."
Welsh asks Kissinger why – 29 years later – he still has not spoken or written of the truth in the matter. He also asks why Kissinger reportedly ordered the destruction or removal of all State Department and National Security Council files pertaining to the matter.
"To be fair, I too never discussed my knowledge of the operation all these years," Welsh writes. "I knew the truth. But in late 2000, I finally began to question why, of all the persons in the world, Yasser Arafat was exempt, by deliberate decision of our government, from the consequences of his ordering the murders of these two diplomats."
Welsh continues: "One truly wonders what the landscape of Israel would be like today if Arafat's complicity had been released into the public sector. I think American public opinion would have rendered a strong disapproval, long ago, of this man ever being a partner for peace."
Welsh says the truth will eventually be revealed and calls on Kissinger to explain, beforehand, why he withheld this information from the American people.
The history of this affair began on Feb. 28, 1973, when Welsh was summoned by a colleague about a communication intercepted from Arafat involving an imminent Black September operation in Khartoum. Within minutes, Welsh recalls, the NSA director was notified and the decision was made to send a rare "FLASH" message – the highest priority – to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum via the State Department.
But the message didn't reach the embassy in time. Somewhere between the NSA and the State Department, someone decided the warning was too vague. The alert was downgraded in urgency.
The next day, eight members of the Black September terrorist organization stormed the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum, took Noel, Moore and others hostage. A day later, the U.S. diplomats and Eid were machine-gunned to death – all, Welsh charges, on the direct orders of Arafat.
Welsh left the Navy and NSA in 1974, keeping quiet about the incident for more than a quarter-century. But no longer.
"These tapes do exist," he says. "I participated in their production. But no one has ever been willing to come forward and acknowledge their existence. I know Yasser Arafat was a direct player in the murder of our diplomats and so has every U.S. administration since Richard Nixon's."
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26803
Earlier stories:
Ex-NSA op asks Congress to probe Arafat murders
Is U.S. hiding Arafat murders?
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We know, even during the Bush administration, that the State dept thought blowing up Israelis was different from blowing up Americans. Now it looks like they thought Americans were Arafat fodder, too.
Thank you for that excellent article.
I for one am glad this story is coming out, thank you for working on it.
I have the WND version posted on the World of Terrorism thread and did several Google searches on it, that are posted, it is at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1754972/posts?page=729#729