Mark G. Levey
BUSH'S IRAN CARD: THE OSP-AIPAC SPY SCANDAL
Mon Aug 30, 2004 21:42
64.140.158.146

BUSH'S IRAN CARD: THE OSP-AIPAC SPY SCANDAL

A Preemptive Leak Wrecks an FBI Security Investigation

Was Disclosure of a Secret FBI Probe Intended to Compromise Investigation of an Israeli Spy in the Pentagon, or to Stop a Strike Against an Iranian Nuclear Plant?

August 30, 2004

WASHINGTON - The New York Times reports today that the unauthorized disclosure last Friday of an FBI counterintelligence investigation halted a year-old probe before it could prove an espionage operation directed by Israel. The NYT article states, "[N]ews reports about the inquiry compromised important investigative steps, like the effort to follow the trail back to the Israelis." [ http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/politics/30spy.html ]

According to that report, the FBI had penetrated a ring involving a civilian DOD analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, who has been allegedly passing classified documents to employees of the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC):

"Mr. Franklin began cooperating with agents this month in an arrangement that is still not completely understood. He agreed to help the authorities monitor his meetings with his contacts at the lobbying group. [Ibid.]"

However, there is another explanation for the leak suggested in other accounts. The FBI probe is reportedly connected with a wider investigation of improper influence wielded by DOD officials inside the Office of Special Plans (OSP), headed by Douglas Feith, a ranking protégé of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Franklin is an Iran specialist in the office, with extensive contacts within groups hostile to the Tehran government.

The OSP is alleged to have been the center of a neoconservative network with links to the Israeli Likud Party and Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi opposition movement. Chalabi has been accused of having provided misleading intelligence about Iraqi WMD programs, manipulating the U.S. into a widening war in the Middle East. According to a story yesterday carried by Knight-Ridder:

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

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

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

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

"But they both center on the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official." [ http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Aug/20040829News021.asp  ]

There have also been hints that the public disclosure of the FBI investigation of alleged Israeli spying in the U.S. is part of a larger, ongoing struggle within the Pentagon over the U.S. role in the Middle East. Before the Iraq invasion, a number of high-ranking uniformed military officers voiced skepticism about the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz blueprint for the Iraq occupation. These same skeptics on the staff of the Joint Chiefs would now be against any U.S. military steps that might encourage a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. There are concerns that Washington may have again been fed disinformation that has skewed policy.

In recent months, Iran has become the target of statements by the Bush Administration condemning Tehran for pursuing an allegedly aggressive nuclear program and accusations that it assisted Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. In his so-called Axis of Evil speech, President Bush targeted Iran along with Iraq and North Korea. Earlier this month, Bush declared that Iran "must abandon her nuclear ambitions."

The ratcheting up of pressures has been reflected in recent statements made in Tehran. On Monday, August 23, Le Monde reported the remarks of Iranian Defense Minister Ali Chamkhani, who is quoted as warning:

"We will not sit with out arms folded waiting for others to act against us (...) Some Iranian military officials feel that preventive operations are neither an American invention nor a prerogative of the United States."[ Mouna Naim, Le Monde, "Iran Raises the Stakes"; translated version at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/083004H.shtml  ]

The Le Monde story goes on to report growing tensions between Iran and Israel in recent weeks. Fears have risen that the Israelis may make a preemptive strike on a Russian-built Iranian nuclear reactor, as they did in 1981 against a similar nuclear installation in Iraq. The Iranians have already threatened to retaliate against Israel, the report suggests, should such a strike take place:

"Israel, in any case, has been warned since August 11. That day Iran announced it had made a successful test of the last version of its medium range missile, Chahab-3, capable, according to the minister's explanations, of reaching Israeli territory. Four days later, the commander of the Pasdarans Corps, the army's auxiliary militia, exulted: "All of Israeli territory, including its military installations and nuclear stocks, are now within reach of Iranian missiles and advanced technology."

In the months prior to 9/11, similar worries of an emerging missile capability by Islamic states amidst a crisis in Palestine preoccupied the Sharon and Bush Administrations. Relations between the US and Saudi Arabia were then at a breaking point. These unresolved issues now seem to be reemerging to the forefront at a time that Bush remains mired in Iraq and facing a strong challenge to his reelection, and Sharon's political survival is similarly in peril. One hears rhetoric from both leaders evoking a millenarian struggle against evil that evokes the period leading up to the outbreak of World War Two.

Fortunately, there are others in the U.S. and Israeli governments, as well as in Tehran, who apparently are trying to put the brakes on these nuclear tensions and seek a continuation of diplomatic efforts. The Washington Post today reported John Edwards, the Democratic Vice President nominee, has offered Tehran an alternative to preemptive attack. The Post reports that Edwards offered in a interview yesterday what Edwards calls a "great bargain":

"A John F. Kerry administration would propose to Iran that the Islamic state be allowed to keep its nuclear power plants in exchange for giving up the right to retain the nuclear fuel that could be used for bomb-making, Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards said in an interview yesterday." [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45216-2004Aug29.html ]

The danger now is that political desperation may drive endangered incumbents to implement scenarios that cannot be reversed. Hopefully, sanity will prevail, but getting through the crisis of the next few months will require that government professionals and the public on all sides be a restraining force.

Mark G. Levey
leveymg@aol.com

Zionist Mafia, "What do you control?" — B.B., Tue Aug 31 00:01