SPY RING BUSTED - AIPAC SCANDAL BREAKS LOOSESat Sep 17, 2005 01:0764.140.159.78
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill" wilburcarp@excite.com
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2005 4:34 PM
SPY RING BUSTED - AIPAC SCANDAL BREAKS LOOSE
http://americanfreepress.net/html/spy_ring.html
Grand jury indictments handed down on Aug. 4 against a senior
Pentagon official and two Washington-based lobbyists linked to
Israel paint a grim picture of a much wider espionage ring involving
unidentified high level U.S. and Israeli government officials,
diplomats and spies.
AFP has obtained a copy of that grand jury indictment. The three at
the center of the case are: Lawrence Anthony Franklin, who held a
top secret security clearance and worked under the prominent neocon,
Douglas Feith, within the office of Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld; Steven J. Rosen, formerly director of foreign policy
issues at American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC); and
Keith Weisman, a senior Middle East analyst in the same Washington-
based lobby group.
AIPAC is the most powerful lobby in Washington. This year,
Condoleezza Rice was just one of many figures from the Bush
administration to attend its annual convention. More than half of
Congress was also in attendance. Rosen appears from the indictments
to have been the prime mover in a conspiracy which began in 1999 but
did not directly involve Franklin until three years later.
As far back as 1978, Rosen held a U.S. government secret security
clearance because of his work with the Rand Corporation. Based on
that clearance, Rosen was later granted top secret clearance by the
CIA. However that was terminated in 1982 when he ceased work at Rand
and joined AIPAC in Washington as its director of foreign policy
issues.
The grand jury indictment states that in his executive capacity at
AIPAC, he primarily lobbied "officials within the Executive Branch
of the U.S. government."
However, it was not until 1993 that Weisman entered the picture when
he was hired by AIPAC to work on Middle East affairs under the
tutelage of Rosen.
According to the grand jury, in April 1999 Rosen and Weisman began
their spying operations by "cultivating relationships and using
their contacts within the U.S. government and elsewhere to gather
sensitive U.S. government information, including classified
information relating to the national defense" which they then passed
to people connected to Israel's intelligence and diplomatic services.
In the second week of April 1999, Rosen told an unnamed "foreign
official (FO-1)" that he had picked up an "extremely sensitive piece
of codeword protected intelligence" that related to terrorist
activities in Central Asia.
Two months later, Weisman met the same foreign official to tell him
he had learned from "three different sources" of a classified FBI
file on the Khobar Towers bombing. Later that year, Rosen and
Weisman met with a high level U.S. government official not named in
the grand jury indictment papers. They learned from that official
about classified U.S. strategy options concerning Iran. The two
spies then took the information and secretly discussed it with
members of the U.S. media.
It appears from a careful reading of the grand jury charges that
Rosen and Weisman were not only extracting information from within
the U.S. government but were also plying the U.S. media with some of
it, possibly to influence U.S. public opinion and bring it into line
with Israel's Iran policy which was directed at fomenting a military
strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
It has long been Israel's policy to compel the United States to
confront Iran which Israel sees as one of its most dangerous enemies
in the Middle East. Many neo-cons within the Bush administration,
with strong ties to Israel, have long argued that after Iraq, the
United States should force regime change in Iran and Syria.
It is clear from the indictments that before Franklin entered the
picture and became part of the Rosen-Weisman espionage conspiracy,
other U.S. government officials discussed classified matters with
the two AIPAC lobbyists.
For example, the indictments lay out episodes in which Rosen and
Weisman got information from U.S. officials referred to as "USGO 1 &
2" and Defense Department officials, identified as "DOD Employee A &
B," and how, on one occasion, they passed that information to an
unnamed "foreign national."
It was not until August 2002, however, that Franklin, who was then
working on classified Middle East policy matters within the
Department of Defense, came to the attention of the two Israeli
spies.
Before Franklin and Rosen met, Franklin told Rosen in a phone call
that he had seven or eight issues he wanted to discuss with him
and "they were not limited to Iran." The obvious implication from
that is that Franklin either knew who Rosen was or was directed by
someone else in the Pentagon to link up with him.
The first meeting between Rosen and Franklin happened over breakfast
in an Arlington restaurant on Feb. 7, 2003, and the unnamed Defense
employee, "Employee B," was also present, as well as Weisman.
During breakfast, Franklin told the two AIPAC lobbyists about a
classified strategy paper on U.S.-Iran policy. Franklin very quickly
became attached to Rosen and Weisman to the extent that two days
later he discussed with Rosen his prospects for a job on the
National Security Council (NSC) and how that would place him "by the
elbow" of Bush.
He asked Rosen to "put in a good word" for him to which Rosen
replied: "I'll do what I can."
On March 13, 2003, after Franklin faxed a classified document to
Rosen, Rosen met with two officials from the Israeli embassy in
Washington and discussed the information Franklin had provided.
Rosen also leaked material from the document to two members of the
media.
Three months later, at Weisman's request, Franklin acquired for him
a copy of a CIA document. One of the most intriguing aspects of the
indictment is that Franklin not only met Rosen and Weisman but some
of their contacts from the Israeli embassy, especially an
unidentified individual referred to as "Foreign Official 3-FO-3."
In one section of the indictment papers, while in no way minimizing
Franklin's role, the grand jury pointed out that it was the strategy
of the "conspirators"-presumably Rosen, Weisman, Israeli diplomats
and others-to "develop a trustworthy relationship" and also
to "foster an environment" in which Franklin "felt free to disclose
classified information." In other words, a web was cleverly woven to
entrap Franklin.
Sometimes, Franklin and FO-3 met at the Pentagon Officers Athletic
Club beside the Pentagon and, as a rule, their discussions centered
on Iran, its nuclear policy and the strategies being adopted by
various U.S. government agencies to deal with Iran.
According to the grand jury, after one such meeting on May 23, 2003,
Franklin returned to his desk in the DOD and drafted a memo to his
superiors "incorporating suggestions being made by FO-3." Therefore,
Franklin acted as a conduit for the Israeli government to secretly
shape U.S. foreign policy particularly toward Iran, and other
countries in the Middle East.
Franklin and FO-3 became such close buddies that Franklin asked him
for, and received, a letter to help his daughter in her travels to
Israel and other parts of the Middle East.
It was FO-3, according to the grand jury, who suggested to Franklin
that he meet with a former member of Mossad who was running a think
tank in Israel. Franklin agreed and met the person in the Pentagon
cafeteria where they discussed Iran's nuclear program.
On May 18, 2004, Franklin again met FO-3 and handed him classified
information regarding Iranian activities in Iraq. Three week later,
again in the Pentagon, Franklin met FO-3 who was accompanied by
another person from the Israeli embassy and they discussed Iraq.
For the remainder of that month, the FBI monitored his meetings with
Rosen and Weisman and their meetings with FO-3 from the Israeli
embassy.
Having snagged Franklin, FBI agents did not leave the two AIPAC
lobbyists on too long a leash. On Aug. 3, 2004, the FBI interviewed
the two lobbyists about Franklin.
A major question left unanswered by the indictment of the trio is
whether the espionage inquiry will stop there. While members of the
Israeli embassy can claim diplomatic immunity, no such immunity will
be available to other unnamed U.S. government officials alleged to
have passed classified materials to Rosen and Weisman before Franklin
came on board.
It will also be hard for AIPAC to claim it knew nothing about the
activities of Rosen and Weisman, especially when the indictments
include a reference to Weisman passing materials to AIPAC colleagues.
It will also be difficult for Israel to claim that it does not spy
on the United States or covertly try to influence U.S. foreign
policy.
As for the Bush administration and the neo-cons within it who have
argued that Israel is America's best ally, the grand jury
indictments tell a different story.
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