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06.09.04, 02:46
FBI probes Jewish sway on Bush government
Haaretz, By Nathan Guttman
WASHINGTON - The FBI investigation into the Pentagon mole affair has expanded
beyond data analyst Larry Franklin's immediate circle to encompass the entire
issue of Jewish influence on the neoconservative part of the administration.
The FBI queries have recently been focusing on a number of officials, all
from the neoconservative wing, who had access to the debates on Iranian
affairs, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
The officials include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary
of Defense Douglas Feith; Pentagon adviser Richard Perle; adviser to Vice
President Dick Cheney, David Wormser; and Iran specialist Harold Rhode, all
of them Jews.
The Washington Post reported that FBI people recently spoke to administration
officials and Middle East experts to sound them out on the suspicion that
senior officials funneled secret material to Israel. They asked each official
whether he believes that a certain group of people could spy for Israel and
transfer secret information.
The investigation now appears to center on the claim made by the opponents of
the neoconservatives in the administration - that the latter are responsible
for the U.S. Middle East policy and that they are suspected of bias in favor
of Israel's interests.
The issues being queried have also increased. It transpires that the FBI is
investigating, in addition to funneling classified information to Israel, the
possibility that secret information had been given to Ahmed Chalabi, of the
Iraqi opposition. Chalabi was close to many of the people mentioned in the
affair and was a central source of information to the Americans on the goings-
on in Iraq before the war.
The Washington Post said the FBI asked the administration officials about
Israeli embassy officials in Washington who allegedly held contacts with
administration officials to procure secret information. So far, only the name
of Naor Gilon, the political adviser in the embassy, was mentioned as
involved in the affair.
The L.A. Times reported on Friday that the American administration does not
believe Israel's contention that it does not spy on America and that U.S.
government officials say Israel secretly maintains a large and active
intelligence-gathering operation in the U.S.
The officials said the FBI and other bodies spy on Israeli diplomats in
Washington and New York as a matter of routine. The report said that Israel
has long attempted to recruit U.S. officials as spies and to procure
classified documents, according to the Times.
Israel said it set a policy of not spying on the United States after Jonathan
Pollard's arrest in November 1985 and the damage it did to bilateral
relations in general and to intelligence and security ties in particular. For
20 years, Israel said, that policy has translated into unequivocal directives
to the intelligence and defense communities: They are not allowed to locate
candidates for recruiting as agents, cannot recruit and operate agents, nor
pay for information.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/473428.html
