Posted on 08/27/2004 6:43:08 PM PDT by jsbankston
WASHINGTON - The FBI (news - web sites) is investigating whether an analyst for the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s No. 3 official acted as a spy for Israel, giving the Jewish state classified materials about secret White House deliberations on Iran, two federal law enforcement officials said Friday.
AP Photo
No arrests have been made, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing. But a third law enforcement official, also speaking anonymously, said an arrest in the case could come as early as next week.
The officials refused to identify the Pentagon employee who is under investigation, but said the person works in the office of Douglas J. Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon.
Feith is a key aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, working on sensitive policy issues including U.S. policy toward Iraq (news - web sites) and Iran. There are slightly more than a handful of people in Feith's office who specifically work on Iranian issues.
The investigation centers on whether the employee in Feith's office passed secrets about Bush administration policy toward Iran to the main pro-Israeli lobbying group in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which then allegedly gave them to the Israeli government, one official said.
David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said: "We categorically deny these allegations. They are completely false and outrageous."
AIPAC said in a statement that the lobbying group was "fully cooperating with the governmental authorities, and will continue to do so."
It said any allegation of criminal conduct by the organization or its employees was "baseless and false," adding that the group "would not condone or tolerate for a second any violation of U.S. law or interests."
Pentagon officials refused to comment, referring all questions to the Justice Department (news - web sites).
The investigation, first reported by CBS News, has included wiretapping and surveillance, and searches of the Pentagon employee's computer, the law enforcement officials said.
President Bush (news - web sites) has identified Iran as part of an "axis of evil," along with North Korea (news - web sites) and the former Iraqi regime. Yet, his administration has battled internally over how hard a line to take toward Iran, with the State Department generally advocating a more moderate position and more conservative officials in the Pentagon and at the White House's National Security Council advocating a tougher policy.
Israel — one of the United States' strongest allies — and its conservative prime minister, Ariel Sharon (news - web sites), have pushed the Bush administration toward a harder line toward Iran.
Israel and Iran have been in an increasingly harsh war of words in recent months. Senior Israeli officials have left open the possibility of an Israeli attack on suspected Iranian nuclear weapons development sites.
In response, Iran threatened last week to destroy Israel's Dimona reactor should Israel carry out such an attack.
In 1981, Israel destroyed a nuclear facility in Iraq after becoming suspicious that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was developing a nuclear weapons capability.
Despite the close U.S.-Israeli relations, this is not the first allegation of spying by Israel.
Jonathan Pollard, a former naval intelligence officer who gave top-secret documents to Israel, has been a point of contention in U.S.-Israeli relations. The Israeli government has repeatedly pressed for his release, but intelligence officials have called the information he passed to the Israelis highly damaging.
Pollard was caught in Washington in November 1985, and was arrested after unsuccessfully seeking refuge at the Israeli Embassy.
A congressional aide declined to say if the Senate Intelligence Committee had been briefed on the case but said the panel is generally briefed on espionage cases.
I hope this guy is a holdover from Clinton.
Do you have a link for this article?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20040828/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/pentagon_spy_probe_6
Please attach!
PonG
Thanks.
"A congressional aide declined to say if the Senate Intelligence Committee had been briefed on the case but said the panel is generally briefed on espionage cases."
Interesting!
But then Sandy Burger may sneak the papers out of the 'prison.'
I think this is connected to Plame. And I think it's no accident that it was leaked at this moment.
ping
Wow, imagine that. We sure can catch spies from Israel. Isn't everyone happy no spies from China have ever entered our nation?
During Clinton's administration we had known spies in the White House. Anyone get prosecuted? I don't recall any.
If an ally spies on us, that's not a good thing. What they need, we should be providing within reason. They shouldn't seek more. So I have no problem catching and even prosecuting the spies of allies.
If a hostile nation spies on us, that's perhaps fatal to our nation. I do find it curious how certain nation's spies are sought so actively, but others given the keys to the kingdom.
They can't pin this against Bush.
Sneaking out info that is still being put together would not benefit the administration.
And The Bush Admin. should point that out.
It would hurt them.....
So maybe this guy is a dem...
The investigation centers on whether the employee in Feith's office passed secrets about Bush administration policy toward Iran to the main pro-Israeli lobbying group in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which then allegedly gave them to the Israeli government, one official said
What do we know about this group, it funding, it influence, it history, its access into the pentagon?
I just noticed they said they do not know for sure that the person snuck any documents out.
So this may be nothing.
regardless....he obviously was not doing it on Behalf of the Bush Admin....because it was their secret docs...that they did not want out.
Bill Gertz was just on Greta's show.
He said there is friendly spying...intelligence gathering...and that may be what the Israeli was doing. That is done by all nations.
But it could also be espionage, a much more serious charge, and that would not be taken so lightly.
I have no idea about this group, but it would not surprise me if this story is being leaked in order to prod Fitzpatrick into closing or billing the grand jury.
It would not surprise me at all to find out that the yellowcake documents were passed through this group, in some shape or another.
It seems to me that lots of intelligence, and not very good intelligence, got passed around the Pentagon, and I think it would be advantageous to explore where lots of it came from.
Pentagon challenges Rockefeller on Feith hit
-excerpt:
In November, an internal memo from Mr. Rockefeller's staff leaked to conservative radio host Sean Hannity. It detailed a strategy whereby committee Democrats would cooperate with Republicans to produce a report as critical as possible of the Bush administration. Once the report came out, the strategy paper said, Democrats would then push for more investigations no matter what the first investigation said.
"The fact that the chairman supports our investigations ... is helpful and potentially crucial," the memo said.
Once Democrats have "exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority," the memo says, "we can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time — but we can only do so once."
"The best time to do so will probably be next year," when Mr. Bush would be campaigning for re-election, the Democratic memo said.
I thought Feith was already a consultant to the Israeli government.
Oh yeah, that was prior to his current job.
sure
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