WASHINGTON: Washington was rocked late last week by allegations that a Pentagon policy analyst on Iran, Laurence A. Franklin, had passed classified information to Israel through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobby group in the US. He is also said to have had extensive meetings with Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and a specialist on Iran's nuclear weapons program.
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Journalist Steven Green, a long-time observer of Israeli espionage efforts in the United States, told the Daily Star that he had spoken extensively with individuals involved in the investigation, and that "I know from personal experience that its scope is much wider in terms of the targets than we have been told so far."
He said that more senior officials than Franklin "should be extremely nervous about this." Green speculated that the scandal might involve exchanges of information between "sophisticates in the intelligence communities of Israel and Iran at the expense of the United States. ... There is a possible quid-pro-quo involved in Iran receiving US intelligence codes through the neocon favorite Ahmed Chalabi and the Israelis getting our latest thinking on Iran's nuclear program. ...You can see how that would benefit both parties, but not the US."
USA Today reported Monday that law enforcement officials said "there may be some crossover" between the Franklin and Chalabi investigations.
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James Bamford, a leading observer of the US intelligence community and author of the recent book "Pretext for War," said, "These allegations don't surprise me at all, since Franklin works for Feith, who is essentially a pro-Israel extremist. It certainly should encourage another look at the influence of Israel in the motivations for the Iraq war. Sharon was pushing the US very hard to go to war in August, 2002." Bamford added: "The neoconservatives surround themselves with people who are fanatically pro-Israel, and maybe they were too over confident, or felt that no one would notice or no one would care, or that they were running things so it wouldn't matter, but luckily the FBI is independent of the Pentagon." Bamford said it is significant that while the FBI had informed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, it had not told Feith about the investigation.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=7909meetings with Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and a specialist on Iran's nuclear weapons program.
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