CONSOLIDATED PENTAGON SPY DATA, THREAD II

[WilliamPitt]

Original thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2272624&mesg_id=2272624

Be sure to bookmark it.

Anyone who wants to take a swing at a summary, you're on.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. AIPAC and neo-cons.

Is that condensed enough? ;-)

On edit: This takes me back to something I heard a long, long time ago. I cannot help but wonder, at this time: How far are these guys willing to go? What aren't they capable of?

[SaveElmer]

4. College friend is the Senior Military Analyst at AIPAC

Haven't seen him in 20 years.

I'd hate to think he was involved in this...but wouldn't be entirely shocked.

[Pachamama]

82. It isn't Michael Westfal is it?

I looked at the org chart of Feith's office and meditated on it and that name came to me as the one to look at....just thought I'd ask....

[Snazzy]

2. No summary from me, but based on NYT it's Larry Franklin

Tactical Peak had just posted this:

The Pentagon analyst who officials said is under suspicion was one of two department officials who traveled to Paris for a secret meeting with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer who had been a central figure in the Iran-contra affair.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirmed last year that the secret meeting had occurred, but he defended it as an appropriate diplomatic effort. He said the talks went nowhere.

http://nytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/28spy.html?hp

---------

Franklin is former DIA, Iran Desk, assigned to Luti, and was the guy on that trip (with Harold Rhode). Between the Wapo and NYT info, that narrows it to Frankiln.

BG on that trip (Iran Contra redux):

http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3706341&p1=0

[Snazzy]

108. So what, don't I get a cookie?

:donut: :shrug: :beer:

[Snazzy]

109. JMM/Rozen/Glastris Teaser Story is out

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html

LBN on that:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x784906

Rozen's blog updated too:

http://www.warandpiece.com/

Front page of Wash. Monthly says it is part of a series (which is awkward language for a monthly. Hopefully they mean cover story and related articles). Which is why I say teaser--no frogs marching to the beat of the plates shifting--tonight.

[H2O Man]

3. Not a summary, but .....

I would think people interested in this subject should look closely at David Wurmser and John Bolton.

[shraby]

8. H20...wasn't there a Robert

somebody who went to Rome at the time the forged documents appeared? I can't remember his full name. It's probably on one of the Plame threads. Seems like the name was Robert.

[H2O Man]

80. Hey, buddy!

Not sure .... I can't remember it .... but ain't this something? Right now, we are seeing history in the making. Strange days, indeed! I'm looking through some different sites, trying to catch up on the morning news, but will be very interested in what you think of this as it progresses. I think, my friend, that one big question is being answered: "Why?"

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. Immediate news release scotching theory that spy helped drive US to war...

...guilty party (of course) is low-level staffer that could never have affected US policy decisions.

This would tend to indicate that there are higher-ups.

Someone is being sacrificed to keep the sewage from backing up into the SecDef's office, or more likely the VP's office.

"...The investigation involves a single individual at D.O.D. at the desk officer level, who was not in a position to have significant influence over U.S. policy. Nor could a foreign power be in a position to influence U.S. policy through this individual. To the best of D.O.D.'s knowledge, the investigation does not target any other D.O.D. individuals."

(Note Buick-sized DoD escape hatch in bold...)

Uh-huh.

And I'm a penguin.

[shraby]

9. If it was a low-level, how and why

would they pass on stuff that was of no interest? Sure looks like this is a case of nothing over there, look here.

[Joanne98]

6. The best posts from thread one.........

The Men From JINSA and CSP
By Jason Vest
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest


DoD Statement on Jack Shaw and the Iraq Telecommunications Contract
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


Douglas Feith presided over a secretive intelligence unit that was briefed by Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi and sifted through CIA intelligence looking for evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
His underlings Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin jetted off to Rome in December 2001 for secret meetings with Iran-Contra figures Michael Ledeen and Manucher Ghorbanifar.

Feith's organizational chart (from RonK at Dailykos)

http://www.defenselink.mil/policy/policy_org_chart.html

Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm

Signed by:

Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Study Group Leader
James Colbert, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Johns Hopkins University/SAIS
Douglas Feith, Feith and Zell Associates
Robert Loewenberg, President, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Jonathan Torop, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Meyrav Wurmser, Johns Hopkins University


http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Douglas_Fe...


The FANDZ INTERNATIONAL LAW GROUP was established in 1999 with the formation of Zell, Goldberg & Co. and its alliance with Feith & Zell, P.C.

Following the reorganization of Feith & Zell, P.C., precipitated by the appointment of our colleague Douglas J. Feith as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the George W. Bush Administration in 2001, the FANDZ INTERNATIONAL LAW GROUP now encompasses the strategic alliances between Zell, Goldberg & Co. and its offices in Moscow (in cooperation with Khalimon & Partners), Washington, D.C. (in cooperation with Shapiro, Sher Guinot & Sandler, P.A) and in Seattle, Washington

I wonder who the CO is???????

http://www.fandz.com/html/fandz.html


These Guys got together to start a war.

Who is Ahmed Chalabi?
by Michel Chossudovsky
www.globalresearch.ca 21 May 2004
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO405D.html


""Team B" was a two-man analysis cell, which "cherry-picked" raw data from the entire data base of the CIA, NSA, and DIA, seeking "proof" of Saddam Hussein links to Al-Qaeda, and evidence of Saddam's secret weapons programs. The first members of "Team B" were David Wurmser—now a top aide to Vice President Cheney—and Michael Maloof, who was later in the OSP, but is now on administrative leave with pay from the Pentagon. Intelligence community sources have reported to this news service that Maloof is being probed for his possible role in the leaking of U.S. Iraq war plans to Israel. Maloof has also been linked to Lebanese "businessman" Emad El Hage, who is being promoted by Washington neo-cons as a future "Ahmed Chalabi of Lebanon"—i.e., an American-Israeli frontman for a future "Iraq treatment" for Syria and Lebanon."

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3046chnygte_plmbr...

[spooked]

7. HAROLD RHODE and LARRY FRANKLIN went to Paris

and met with Ghorbanifar...

http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq&startpos=500&iraq_themes=officeOfSpecialPlans

June 2003

The Pentagon Office of Special Plans sends two Defense officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, to Paris where they secretly meet with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms trader who had been a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair. Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute is said to have arranged the meeting, which is not authorized by the White House. It appears that the purpose of the meeting is to undermine a pending deal that the White House is negotiating with the Iranian government. Iran is considering turning over five al-Qaeda operatives in exchange for Washington dropping its support for Mujahadeen Khalq, an Iraq-based rebel Iranian group listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. The Office of Special Plans is reportedly interested in using this group to help destabilize Iran?s government. When Secretary of State Colin Powell gets wind of its activities, he complains directly to the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying that Feith's missions are against US policy.
People and organizations involved: Michael Ledeen, Manucher Ghorbanifar, Larry Franklin, Harold Rhode

[starroute]

16. Michael Ledeen, Harold Rhode, and Ghorbanifar

This information seems to make the August 1 thread on Josh Marshall's hints about the Niger forgeries particularly relevant.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2128960

I'll try to summarize the main points:

The Niger uranium documents are known to have passed from Italian military intelligence to a middle-man to an Italian journalist to the US embassy in Rome. This Italian connection tends to cast suspicion on Michael Ledeen. Here's one particularly telling point:

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/07/when_in_rome.html

Kevin Drum notes that the sections of the Senate report dealing with the Iraq-Niger forgery are a mass of redactions. It's not all redacted, however, and I did pick something up that I hadn't seen before. Page 58 states:

The INR nuclear analyst told the Committee staff that the thing that stood out immediately about the documents was that a companion document -- a document included with the Niger documents that did not relate to uranium -- mentioned some type of military campaign against major world powers. The members of the alleged military campaign included both Iraq and Iran and was, according to the documents, being orchestrated through the Nigerien Embassy in Rome, which all struck the analyst as "completely implausible." Because the stamp on this document matched the stamp on the uranium document , the analyst thought that all of the documents were likely suspect. The analyst was unaware at the time of any formatting problems with the documents or inconsistencies with the names or dates.

So that's how INR first got on the scent. Now unlike formatting problems, this isn't the kind of thing a forger would do by mistake.

And as we see, trying to include evidence of an Iran-Iraq plot degraded the credibility of the uranium forgery. One must concluded, then, that the forger was trying to get people to believe in the existence of an Iran-Iraq conspiracy. A completely implausible theory indeed, though one Michael Ledeen's been peddling for years. And Ledeen seems to get a lot of his "information" on this front from Italy.


This is another:

http://www.needlenose.com/pMachineFree2.2.1/comments.php?id=P645_0_1_0

Back in late October, Joshua Marshall began tossing around hints about who might have forged documents suggesting that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger, back when the Bushites were trying to scare us with mushroom-cloud images. A few days later, he posted a follow-up underlining the notion that those documents were consciously created to help that scare campaign.

Then, however, Marshall went silent on the subject . . . until today. At the end of a brief post on questionable contacts between the neocons in the Defense Department and Iran-Contra scam artist Manucher Ghorbanifar, he writes, "make a note for future reference about where that first meeting took place." That sent me checking the New York Times article he was referring to, which said, "The secret meetings were first held in Rome in December 2001." Guess what city the forged Niger uranium documents turned up in? That's right, Rome.

<snip>

As noted in August by both Marshall and the Washington Post, one of the Pentagon aides who met with Ghorbanifar in Rome has been a primary contact point between the Defense Department and Chalabi. As Marshall notes, the aide in question, Harold Rhode, is also a charter member of the neocon-empire club who looked forward to the U.S. ousting Saddam Hussein and dominating the Middle East long before September 11th gave them the excuse.

And from the comments:

But why Rome? -- Well, as noted in a Newsday article by Knut Royce and Tim Phelps from Aug. 8 of this year http://www.why-war.com/news/2003/08/08/secretta.html "Rhode is a protegé of Michael Ledeen, a neo-conservative who was a National Security Council consultant in the mid-1980s when he introduced Ghorbanifar to Oliver North... and others in the opening stages of the Iran-contra affair." Now, what a coincidence -- Ledeen has deep connections with Italy, and specifically, the Italian far right.


Ledeen, who has openly advocated a form of fascism, has long-standing connections with both the Italian right and Israel. He also has had the ear of Karl Rove. A very dangerous and unsettling man.

[grasswire]

50. my first thought was Ledeen.

He's a villain through and through.

[Joanne98]

17. Lyndon LaRouche has alot to say........

"The Children of Satan" part 2 hahahaha
http://larouchein2004.net/pages/other/2004/040103cosarticle2.htm

He HATES Cheney..........

[Pachamama]

83. I've never read anything from him, but maybe he isn't so crazy after all!

Interesting read...

Btw - this part particularly stood out and disturbs me (especially since I'm in CA):

"Curiously, on Sept. 23, 2002--the day before British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued his now-infamous, thoroughly discredited “White Paper” on Iraq's WMD program, Rhode was at the English countryside estate of Lord Jacob Rothschild, delivering a closed-door briefing to a collection of 50 top Anglo-American financiers on the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the planned follow-on wars against Syria and Iran. Among the participants, along with Lord Jacob: American multibillionaire speculator Warren Buffett, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the millionaire Hollywood actor-turned-Governor of California."

:eyes:

[TacticalPeek]

18. "Michael Ledeen, Manucher Ghorbanifar"

I'll bet they make more in syndication than in the original run twenty years ago.

[kentuck]

10. They said the Italian intelligence created the documents.....

when they were created right in the White House, at the OSP ? Then the Italians said, No way, we didn't do it. It was a cover up at that moment. Why would they try to blame it on the Italians? Something is happening, Mr Jones, and we don't know what it is.....

[spooked]

11. Secret Paris Talks to "antagonize Iran"! Powell complained to Rumsfeld

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/08/1060145871467.html

By Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps in Washington
August 9, 2003

The officials who disclosed the secret meetings said the talks with Mr Ghorbanifar were not authorised by the White House and appeared to be aimed at undercutting sensitive negotiations with Iran's Government.

The senior official and another Administration source said the ultimate objective of Mr Feith and a group of neo-conservative civilians inside the Pentagon is change of government in Iran.

The immediate objective appeared to be to "antagonise Iran so that they get frustrated and then by their reactions harden US policy against them".

The official confirmed that the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, complained directly to the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, several days ago about Mr Feith conducting missions that went against US policy.

[girl gone mad]

12. It's Rhode..

and the Nightline talk confirms it in my mind.

[troublemaker]

13. WP says it was someone "under Lutti"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x681625

[Leilani]

28. Someone who works under Lutti

& is a mid-level desk officer

& an Iranian expert

Does anyone have a chart of people at the area desk Lutti heads?

[eleny]

14. About Rhode

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Harold_Rhode

Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Douglas Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith's office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall.

[Perky]

19. Was Rhode involved in that Game thing

I can't remember it was McFarlane or Poindexter but someone for the Ollie nort dats came up with this simulation game involving taking bets on OBL activities or some such thing... It was all quickly disavowed by top echelons as very macabre.

[Dover]

48. Center for cooperative research connects some dots

Rhode: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=harold_rhode

Perle: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?id=884907706-878

Many other profiles:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entities.jsp

[Dover]

54. Notes on Harold Rhode

Notes on Harold Rhode

Harold Rhode is a long time pentagon employee who may well be a Likudnik Agent of Influence.Rhode is a protegee of Michal LeDeen. Through LeDeen's machinations Rhode and Larry Franlin rpresented the Office of Special Plans in a series of meetings with former SAVAK agent Manucher Ghorbanifar an Iranian who is widely considered close to and or working for MOSSAD. To make the meetings even more bizare is that any Pentagon Official would do anything that involved LeDeen and Ghorbanifar since their last joint project was the Iran Contra scandal that divided our nation.

"Ledeen introduced Ghorbanifar to a key neoconservative official, Harold Rhode, a longtime Pentagon staffer who speaks Arabic, Farsi, Turkish and Hebrew and who until recently served in Iraq as a liaison between the Defense Department and Ahmad Chalabi. Rhode and another Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, have been talking to Ghorbanifar about options for regime change in Tehran." SOUTHWEST ASIA Iranian News: The Neocon plot against Iran

"June 2003: The Pentagon Office of Special Plans sends two Defense officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, to Paris where they secretly meet with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms trader who had been a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair. Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute is said to have arranged the meeting, which is not authorized by the White House." Larry Franklin

CONT'D

http://www.sw-asia.com/People/Bio954.htm

[Joanne98]

20. OMG where did you get that chart?????????

Nightline already. Talk about a Friday data dump........

[Stephanie]

24. That chart was from the NY Times

These cons have been hiding in plain sight for years now.

[girl gone mad]

30. I've had it on my desktop for a few months.

It's a handy reference. I thought I got it from MSNBC/Newsweek, but it may have been the times.

[Swamp Rat]

71. I sent emailed this flow chart to Ray Taliaferro on Feb. 2nd, 2004

He's referred to it whenever the dialog turns to matters "OSP."

[Stephanie]

26. The Lie Factory - Mother Jones (Kwiatkowski)

Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith's office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down the law about the department's new anti-Iraq, and broadly anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no "bartering in the bazaar anymore.... You're going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so."

Rhode refused to be interviewed for this story, saying cryptically, "Those who speak, pay."

According to insiders, Rhode worked with Feith to purge career Defense officials who weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Wolfowitz and Feith wanted. Rhode appeared to be "pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with," says a former analyst. "They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the fuck out of there."

The unofficial, off-site recruitment office for Feith and Rhode was the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank whose 12th-floor conference room in Washington is named for the dean of neoconservative defense strategists, the late Albert Wohlstetter, an influential RAND analyst and University of Chicago mathematician. Headquartered at AEI is Richard Perle, Wohlstetter's prize protege, the godfather of the AEI-Defense Department nexus of neoconservatives who was chairman of the Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board. Rhode, along with Michael Rubin, a former AEI staffer who is also now at the Pentagon, was a ubiquitous presence at AEI conferences on Iraq over the past two years, and the two Pentagon officials seemed almost to be serving as stage managers for the AEI events, often sitting in the front row and speaking in stage whispers to panelists and AEI officials. Just after September 11, 2001, Feith and Rhode recruited David Wurmser, the director of Middle East studies for AEI, to serve as a Pentagon consultant.

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/iraq/1448.html

[starroute]

40. American Enterprise Institute and neocon family ties

http://www.alternet.org/story/15481

Irving Kristol's most prominent disciple is Richard Perle, who was until Thursday the Defense Policy Board chairman, is also a "resident scholar" at the American Enterprise Institute, which is housed in the same building as PNAC. Perle himself married into neocon royalty when he wed the daughter of his professor at the University of Chicago, the late Alfred Wohlstetter -- the man who helped both his son-in-law and his fellow student Paul Wolfowitz get their start in Washington more than 30 years ago.

Perle's own protege is Douglas Feith, who is now Wolfowitz's deputy for policy and is widely known for his right-wing Likud position. And why not? His father, Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist Dalck Feith, was once a follower of the great revisionist Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, in his native Poland back in the 1930s. The two Feiths were honored together in 1997 by the right-wing Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).

The AEI has long been a major nexus for such inter-familial relationships. A long-time collaborator with Perle, Michael Ledeen is married to Barbara Ledeen, a founder and director of the anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum (IWF), who is currently a major player in the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and another neo-con power couple -- David and Meyrav Wurmser -- co-authored a 1996 memorandum for Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu outlining how to break the Oslo peace process and invade Iraq as the first step to transforming the Middle East.

Though she doesn't focus much on foreign-policy issues, Lynne Cheney also hangs her hat at AEI. Her husband Dick Cheney recently chose Victoria Nuland to become his next deputy national security adviser. Nuland, as it turns out, is married to Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol's main comrade-in-arms and the co-founder of PNAC.

[stevedeshazer]

75. That's a great chart

Thanks

[berry]

102. This chart says that Rhode left the Pentagon in mid-2003

and then worked as a political advisor to Chalabi (but in what capacity? and who paid him?).

So where is Rhode now and what is he doing? Is it possible that he left because of this investigation? Supposedly it began about a year ago. And a year ago is just about the time that the Plame issue was getting hot. Hmm.

I think I also read somewhere that Hannah or Luti (but maybe someone else--sorry to be muddled) is on "administrative leave" from the Pentagon now. This also could be related to the FBI investigation.

[Zan_of_Texas]

107. Chalabi was being paid by SAIC

In preparation for going over to Iraq and taking control, Chalabi was making a very nice monthly salary, being paid by SAIC, which is a defense contractor very tight with CIA, and located very close to CIA headquarters. At one point, SAIC listed DARPA as one of its contracts.

Pentagon Sending a Team of Exiles to Help Run Iraq

by Douglas Jehl with Jane Perlez
NY Times
April 26, 2003

LONG LINKS
original link <http://bnfp.org/cgi-bin/
articles/arclink.cgi?2003.04.26.10.10.08&orig>

cached copy <http://bnfp.org/cgi-bin/
articles/arclink.cgi?2003.04.26.10.10.08&cache>

"The Pentagon has begun sending a team of Iraqi exiles to Baghdad to be part of a temporary American-led government there, senior administration officials said today.

The team of Iraqi technocrats was selected by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz but is officially employed by a defense contractor, SAIC, the officials said.

'The idea is that you want to have a legitimate Iraqi interim authority in place because it makes all the issues move forward more quickly, including the pumping of oil,' a State Department official said."

[Perky]

15. It occurs to me...

Let's say the Neo-cons started meeting with high level energy people shortly after the ignauguration and they began to talk about a post-war Iraq and dividing up the spoils.

Feil and his buddy Zell start a process of a pretext for a war with Iraq. They bring in Chalabi to legitimize it and Chalabi's payoff is the Iraqi Presidency. Feith forges a Niger Irag connection and lines up Cheney's pals at Haliburton to get a big pay day.

9/11 tragic as it was was also fortuitous in that it gave them a pre-text.

Chalabi comes in a week after the army occupies Baghdad and waits for the pro-forma inauguration. but there were serious miscalculations about the resustance and the Shiite ferment in the south. Suddenly it looks Chalabi has to cool his jets and wait...but as thing progress it becomes less likely that he can be their puppet because it ttuns out there is no WMD. He gats set up as part of the Governing Council, but no one like hims.

He starts demanding to be installed... and the Neo-cons realized that he is a liability. He threatens to go public....a story gets planted about Iranian espioange..and they raid his home. (What the Hell was on that laptop???) Then he gets indicted for Murder...

Feith then fearing he will be tagged as a Ollie North type begins circulating the idea of an Israelli mole. Tenet smells a rat and before all hell breaks lose..hetouches base with his old pal Sandy Berger who ran off to the archives on a search for some more pieces of the puzzle

The discrediting of Chalabi and Berger and the outing of Plume may all well have been attempts to thwart exposure.

I bet the Spy will be shown to have connections to Chalabi, AIPC and Mosad and I bet he used to work for either Enron or Haliburton.

[KittyWampus]

21. OSP & It's Isreali Twin- This Bit Says A Lot, IMO:

According to the former official, also feeding information to the Office of Special Plans was a secret, rump unit established last year in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. This unit, which paralleled Shulsky's--and which has not previously been reported--prepared intelligence reports on Iraq in English (not Hebrew) and forwarded them to the Office of Special Plans. It was created in Sharon's office, not inside Israel's Mossad intelligence service, because the Mossad--which prides itself on extreme
professionalism--had views closer to the CIA's, not the Pentagon's, on Iraq. This secretive unit, and not the Mossad, may well have been the source of the forged documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium for weapons from Niger in West Africa, according to the former official.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20030707&s=dreyf...

[Davis_X_Machina]

22. The veritable plethora....

...of possible perps is depressing to consider.

We threw up a dozen names without breaking a sweat, armed with nothing more dangerous than Google skills and spare time.

Seems to me like the cockroach-to-wainscotting ration in the Bush foreign & defense policy apparat is way too high.

[Dover]

23. Israeli spys sent home

Suspicious moving van prompt Kings Bay lockdown

By Andrew Stevenson and AAP
September 30 2002


The Associated Press - ST. MARYS, Ga.

Military officials locked down Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base for security reasons after two men were detained for questioning.

Two Israeli men working for a moving-and-storage company attempted to enter the base about 10:30 a.m. Friday to pick up some items in base housing, said base spokesman Ed Buczek.

One of them was unable to provide security personnel with proper credentials, so base personnel and bomb-sniffing dogs inspected the van.

..snip..

Nothing was found in the van, but both men, whose names were not released, were later taken into custody by federal immigration officers for possible deportation, he said.

Kings Bay is near Sea Island, which will host the G-8 Summit next month.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=38654


______



Jeweler's bail a king's ransom



By WARREN WOODBERRY Jr. and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

A federal judge decided yesterday that an elderly Manhattan jeweler was a dangerous player in the plot to supply terrorists with a surface-to-air missile - and set his bail at $10 million.
Yehuda Abraham, 75, remained behind bars yesterday while new details emerged about the grandfather of eight who made a mint selling gems to the rich and royal.

He had shops around the world, including Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that he's Jewish.

Abraham's neighbors in Forest Hills, Queens - the jeweler's home for more than 40 years - said they're not convinced the feds got the right man.

"I believe that there's a screwup here, that he's not involved in it," said Bernie Roseman, who lives a few doors away.

Sylvia Hanna, who lives next door to Abraham's stately home at 70th Ave. and Ingram St., said she doesn't believe Abraham would knowingly help terrorists blow up an airliner....cont'd

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/109028p-98506c.html



9/11 Related stories about Israeli suspects:



Israelis Arrested and Detained for 9-11

Exclusive To American Free Press

By Michael Collins Piper

Attorney General John Ashcroft has released an Israeli suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist events who “had trouble” with a seven-hour polygraph test administered by the FBI—but who “did better on a second try.” In other words, the suspect still flunked both times.

That’s not some “rumor” from the Muslim world. That remarkable admission appeared in the Nov. 21 is sue of The New York Times.

The Times reported the suspect, Paul Kurzberg, “re fused on principle to divulge much about his role in the Israeli army or subsequently working for people who may have had ties to Israeli intelligence.”

Yet, Ashcroft sent Kurzer home to Israel.

The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, reported on Nov. 23 that “top-ranking Israeli diplomats” had intervened with Ashcroft on behalf of Kurzer and four other young Israelis—evidently all former members of the Israeli Army—who had been taken into custody by the FBI in New Jersey after being seen acting suspiciously in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack.

The Times said that witnesses had seen Kurzer and his four colleagues “going to unusual lengths to photograph the World Trade Center ruins” and, significantly, “making light of the situation”—hardly the response one would expect from American allies...cont'd

http://www.americanfreepress.net/Mideast/Israelis_Arrested_and_Detained/israelis_arrested_and_detained.html

....


July 9, 2002

The Tehran Times, (www.tehrantimes.com) from July 8, 2002, under the heading of "Dear Concerned" blames Israel and US for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

The Tehran Times starts with "...there is now tons of evidence that the US/Israel governments were involved in the WTC/911 events. Here are some facts: WHAT DID THE GOVERNMENT KNOW AND WHEN DID IT KNOW IT?
The task was simple, deny the evidence, cover-up the embarrassing arrest of two Israelis with an explosives-tainted truck, and give the media a reason to return to the mantra of "all terror is caused by Muslims".
But what started as a simply attempt to spin the news away from the Israelis arrested in Washington State has backfired on the Bush administration in a big way. In conducting the classic "limited hangout" of admitting to foreknowledge of the attacks of 9-11 in order to reassert the link to Osama bin Laden, Bush has handed opponents of his administration and opponents of World War the most damning proof yet that the reality of 9-11 is not what the US Government and media have been telling the American people it is."

The Times adds, "he arrested Israelis posed a problem. History records in the Lavon Affair that Israelis willingly use bombs and lay false trails to Arabs for political gain. . .
And it wasn't too long ago that JDL Chairman Irv Rubin was arrested for plotting to blow up a US Congressman who refused to toe the Israel party line. Then there were the two Mossad agents arrested inside the Mexican Congress with guns and explosives shortly after 9-11. . .
As the battered World Trade Towers collapsed, the very first suspects arrested, caught cheering as the towers fell, were Israelis, later identified as Mossad agents. The arrested spies worked for Urban Moving Systems, whose Israeli owner promptly fled the nation.".....

http://www.likud.nl/extr214.html

____________


U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study
by Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times September 10, 2001 (Mossad involvement)

http://www.public-action.com/911/sams.html

_____________


Classified by Asscroft: FBI Infiltrator With Dual Citizenship Stymied 911 Investigation

August 13, 2002

Letter from Senator Leahy to
Hon. John Ashcroft Attorney General United States Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20530
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/06/30/1510799

[Joanne98]

25. Blair visits Italy.......

Blairs to Drop in on Italian PM

"PA"


Tony Blair is heading back to Italy for part of his summer holidays as a special guest of political counterpart Silvio Berlusconi.

Controversial billionaire Berlusconi said Mr Blair and his family would be his guests for two days at his Sardinian villa next month.

Berlusconi revealed the plans to MPs from his Forza Italia party at his office in Rome.

He told them: “This will help reinforce the special rapport I have with my English counterpart.”

The Blair party, currently staying at Sir Cliff Richard’s Barbados holiday home, is due to arrive at the luxurious Villa La Certosa near Porto Rotondo on August 16 for a two-day stay.

Media tycoon Berlusconi frequently entertains foreign leaders at his Sardinian villa. Russian PM Vladimir Putin is a previous guest.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3267704

And how could we forget the Bilderburg meeting in Rome. What the Hell.
Is there a massive revolt of the intel workers or something. Remember David Kelly. The British spooks are pissed too.

[SilasSoule]

27. The ABC Nighline Reporter

just described the mole as an employee of the Pentagon for 30 years?? and was mid-level, Farsi speaker.

[Leilani]

32. The Washington Post also says mid level

& an Iranian expert...do they speak Farsi?

And under Lutti, at the South & Mid Asia desk.

[starroute]

37. Harold Rhode speaks Farsi

See post #14.

[phish420]

29. Larry Johnston on Oberman

wow...Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst counterterrorism expert says he has known about this for some time and that it actually is tied in with the forged yellowcake documents, which is interesting because I had heard that was going to come to a head soon... turn out, there is a theory that it was Israel that forged the document to give evidence to support a war in iraq, which enhances their security if we are there.

THEN, right after, they showed that press conference clip where bush couldnt think of any mistakes he has made (I was shocked to see the media bring this back up...its almost like the 'liberal media' is actually being kinda 'liberal' tonight...go figure!!)...now he has finally acknowledged that he 'miscalculated' the Iraq war.

[TrustingDog]

31. CBC Peter Mansbridge introduced the story just now....

who else?

[Joanne98]

33. The Evangelicals and Zionism........ (history)

Dispensationalism
Among conservative Christians in Britain, this unity of political destiny and religious fulfillment was given its theological form in the hands of an Irish pastor J.N. Darby. As Herzl was the father of Jewish Zionism, one could argue that Darby was the father of Christian Zionism. Darby's system - soon called Dispensationalism - taught a literal fulfillment of prophesies in the near-present age. He used the biblical books of Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah and Revelation to weave a consistent picture of the Last Days. The church is raptured, the anti-Christ arises, Armageddon erupts, and Christ returns to establish his kingdom on earth. But above all, the revival of Israel is the catalyst of the End Times.

Despite eight missionary trips to America, Darby was greeted here with indifference. But when leading evangelists such as Dwight Moody, Billy Sunday and Harry Ironsides saw how the drama and fear and hope in this scenario influenced audiences, Darby's views caught on like wildfire. In 1881, for instance, Horatio and Anna Spafford and 16 friends opened the American Colony in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City to watch - as they put it - "prophesy being fulfilled."

William Blackstone (1841-1935) was a Chicago evangelist and student of Moody. In 1878 he published Jesus is Coming which was America's first Dispensational best-seller. The book went through three editions and was translated into 42 languages. In 1890 Blackstone was visiting Jewish settlements in the Holy Land and organizing conferences in Chicago to restore Jews to Palestine. Blackstone worked closely with Jewish Zionists and in 1918 was hailed by the Zionist Conference of Philadelphia as a "Father of Zionism." In 1956 Israel memorialized him by naming a forest in his name.

In 1909 Cyrus Scofield published a popular study bible, the Scofield Reference Bible, and in its footnotes readers throughout America inherited Darby's theological program. (To date over 2 million of them have been sold.) In 1917 five weeks after the Balfour Declaration, the Turks handed Jerusalem over to Britain to the amazement of prophesy watchers. In 1918 dispensationalists organized their first prophesy conferences and they continued for decades. Before long - throughout the 1920s and for the next 40 years - Dispensationalism tied to Israel and prophesy became the litmus test of evangelical orthodoxy.

http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/ID/159

[Must_B_Free]

34. Wow Pat Buchanan flabbergahsted

startling development. Multiple segments as Flash News. I was just there screaming at the tv laughing. The gravity of it is so big he didn't know what to say.

[Joanne98]

35. Never forget this.........

One of the best breaks we've had in years......

Jesus Plus Nothing
Originally from Harper's Magazine, March 2003. By Jeffrey Sharlet.
SourcesAnd a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
—Matthew 10:36

This is how they pray: a dozen clear-eyed, smooth-skinned “brothers” gathered together in a huddle, arms crossing arms over shoulders like the weave of a cable, leaning in on one another and swaying like the long grass up the hill from the house they share. The house is a handsome, gray, two-story colonial that smells of new carpet and Pine-Sol and aftershave; the men who live there call it Ivanwald. At the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac, quiet but for the buzz of lawn mowers and kids playing foxes-and-hounds in the park across the road, Ivanwald sits as one house among many, clustered together like mushrooms, all devoted, like these men, to the service of Jesus Christ. The men tend every tulip in the cul-de-sac, trim every magnolia, seal every driveway smooth and black as boot leather. And they pray, assembled at the dining table or on their lawn or in the hallway or in the bunk room or on the basketball court, each man's head bowed in humility and swollen with pride (secretly, he thinks) at being counted among such a fine corps for Christ, among men to whom he will open his heart and whom he will remember when he returns to the world not born-again but remade, no longer an individual but part of the Lord's revolution, his will transformed into a weapon for what the young men call “spiritual war.”

“Jeff, will you lead us in prayer?”

Surely, brother. It is April 2002, and I have lived with these men for weeks now, not as a Christian—a term they deride as too narrow for the world they are building in Christ's honor—but as a “believer.” I have shared the brothers' meals and their work and their games. I have been numbered among them and have been given a part in their ministry. I have wrestled with them and showered with them and listened to their stories: I know which man resents his father's fortune and which man succumbed to the flesh of a woman not once but twice and which man dances so well he is afraid of being taken for a fag. I know what it means to be a “brother,” which is to say that I know what it means to be a soldier in the army of God.

“Heavenly Father,” I begin. Then, “O Lord,” but I worry that this doesn't sound intimate enough. I settle on, “Dear Jesus.” “Dear Jesus, just, please, Jesus, let us fight for Your name.”

* * *

Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of believers who refer to themselves as “the Family.” The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak


http://www.yuricareport.com /

[Dover]

36. Israeli Espionage

Israeli Espionage: When a Honey Trap Goes Bad A Governor Resigns

John Anast
Aug 15

With the news out that in fact James McGreevey is, by his own admission, a homosexual; the Mossad honey trap has become somewhat unglued. Golan Cipel, the object of the Mr. McGreevy’s affection, worked for the Israeli consulate in New York in the 1990’s and other posts in a capacity to serve the Israeli espionage service and its targeting of American politicians and the American political system.

Notwithstanding all the self-serving political rhetoric spewing from democratic lips attempting to relegate the matter to a personal issue between two men, there are larger and in deed more relevant issues to our Nation's security to discern. It is a glimpse into the world of Israeli espionage targeted against the United States, its politicians, and its people.

...

In its zeal to penetrate the Governors office and homeland security, Mossad demanded that Cipel, an Israeli citizen who lacked any requisite experience or security clearances, be appointed to run New Jersey’s homeland security office. In that position Mr. Cipel could have not only obtained information on US security procedures, but also been in a position to access sensitive investigative information, methods and sources relative to US efforts to thwart Israeli espionage against the United States. New Jersey is still reeling from the Israeli espionage ring which was housed in Urban Movers that collapsed soon after it was discovered on 11 September, and more recently by the detention of two (2) Israelis, working for a New Jersey moving company, caught with classified submarine fuel near a US base in Tennessee where the fuel is manufactured...cont'd

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/August/15%20o/Israeli%20espionage%20When%20a%20Honey%20Trap%20Goes%20Bad%20A%20Governor%20Resigns%20By%20John%20Anast.htm

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

41. The piece you have quoted...

Is part of a larger picture, to be sure.

[Joanne98]

38. Israeli Spy Ring

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring.html

it's got audio too.

[Stephanie]

39. Nightline - the person arranged "cleric conferences" for Wolfie n/t

.

[DenverDem]

42. So where are all the regular Likud apologists screaming anti-semitism????

Conspicuous by their absence.

[redsoxliberal]

43. it broke at 3 AM in Israel

give them time...

[DenverDem]

44. Good point.

They've got to get out of bed to start spinning. Must not be a third shift on Fridays.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

46. Sabbath till Sunset Saturday.

n/t

[DenverDem]

61. I was going to point that out

but didn't want to be called anti-semitic. I don't think Mossad operatives are even Jews, anyway. They just use them for a smokescreen.

[JohnLocke]

68. Checking in.

[Zo Zig]

45. Dots?

The two on the plane to Paris Rhode, Franklin (or Rhode & Luti)
Direct access to Cheney- Wurmser, Luti
Entifadh Qunbar (INC spokesman) direct contact as Hannah, Libby
Qunbar links to Gingrich, Luti
Qunbar linked to Rhode,adviser to Chalabi mid 2003
Rhode direct access to Cheney?
Libby & Hannah wrote the brief for Powell at UN 2/6/03
Where did Hannah come from? DIA or CIA?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

47. Question:

Does the acronym "UNMIK" show up anywhere in this?

[Dover]

49. Chalabi-gate: Hunt in on for Harold Rhode, Michael Rubin and others

http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=305

The hunt on the helping traitors continues...
Besides helping hands in U.S. Media (Judith Miller/NY Times, Jim Hoagland/Washington Post, John Podhoretz/Son of PNAC-Norman Podhoretz), "the hunt is on, in the Republican Party, in Congress, in the CIA and State Department..."

There is a huge chance, that this list will bring us also to the real perpetrators of 9/11, who needed a devastating new "Pearl Harbour", as documented in PNAC files from 2000. Two more names for Chalabi's "sources" had been already added for "ChalabiGate":
Harold Rhode and Michael Rubin)

..snip..


"The real target goes beyond Chalabi. The hunt is on, in the Republican Party, in Congress, in the CIA and State Department and in a media which is being deluged with leaks, for Chalabi's friends and sponsors in Washington – the group known as the neo-cons. In particular, the targets seem to be Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the former assistant secretary (in Reagan's day) Richard Perle, Vice President Dick Cheney's national security aide Scooter Libby, and the National Security Council's Middle East aide Elliott Abrams.

The leaking against them – from sources who insist on anonymity, but some CIA and FBI veterans – is intense. Some of the sources are now private citizens, making a good living through business connections in the Arab world."..CONT'D

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

51. If this has any accuracy at all...

Then all those markers and grudges that people have been sitting on, for so long, have been called. Come due. Payup and payback time. Stuff that the media has been sitting on is gonna flow, because people hate to be left out of the game.

Is this the tipping point?

[Stephanie]

57. Why now?

If this is really CIA laying down their cards against the neo-cons, why dump it on the Friday night before the convention when it will be buried? Can there be any strategy to this timing?

[snippy]

81. Good question.

It seems to me that conventional wisdom is that damaging information is always leaked late on a Friday in an attempt to avoid heavy media coverage. But as I think about that I wonder whether a Friday leak is aimed at the larger readership for Sunday morning papers and for discussion on the Sunday morning political talk shows.

With regard to the CIA possibly involved in the leak, my recollection is that the CIA chose Friday afternoon to leak the fact of its request to DOJ for a criminal investigation of the Plame matter. Of course that assumes that it was the CIA that leaked that information.

[hedda_foil]

52. Laura Rozen has it on warandpiece.org .... It's Franklin

It's also the Josh Marshall tectonic plates story.

http://www.warandpiece.com/

The FBI investigation.

For months, I have been working with my colleagues Paul Glastris and Josh Marshall on a story for the Washington Monthly about US policy towards Iran. In particular, it involves a particular series of meetings involving officials from the office of the undersecretary of defense for Policy Doug Feith and Iranian dissidents.

As part of our reporting, I have come into possession of information that points to an official who is the most likely target of the FBI investigation into who allegedly passed intelligence on deliberations on US foreign policy to Iran to officials with the pro-Israeli lobby group, AIPAC, and to the Israelis, as alleged by the CBS report. That individual is Larry Franklin, a veteran DIA Iran analyst seconded to Feith’s office.

<more>

[Perky]

59. More on Franklin

Meetings With Iran-Contra Arms Dealer Confirmed


Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that Pentagon officials met secretly with a discredited expatriate Iranian arms merchant who figured prominently in the Iran-contra scandal of the mid-1980s, characterizing the contact as an unexceptional effort to gain possibly useful information.

snip

A senior administration official said, however, that Pentagon staff members held one or two other meetings with Ghorbanifar last year in Italy. The sessions so troubled Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, the official said, that he complained to Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.

Powell maintained that the Pentagon activities were unauthorized and undermined U.S. policy toward Iran by taking place outside the terms defined by Bush and his top advisers. The White House instructed the Pentagon to halt meetings that do not conform to policy decisions, said the official, who requested anonymity.

The Defense Department personnel who met with Ghorbanifar came from the policy directorate. Sources identified them as Harold Rhode, a specialist on Iran and Iraq who recently served in Baghdad as the Pentagon liaison to Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst.

more....

http://www.iranexpert.com/2003/meetingsarmsdealer9august.htm

[KoKo]

60. Rozen's article seems to say that it's "politically motivated" against

Franklin, though. She says he's not part of the Neo-Cons and at least my read of her article is that she seems puzzled they would focus on Larry Franklin..

Here's more and a couple of updates to her original comments in her article. She thinks this might be a set up for a "controlled burn" by the White House. I find her article a downer..because I feel she thinks they have the wrong guy. :shrug:

Quote:

A friend points out one other irony is that what the Pentagon official is alleged in the CBS report to have passed to AIPAC and the Israelis is essentially a diplomatic document that describes a draft US policy position to Iran; in other words -- hardly the crown jewels, and hardly enough to warrant wiretaps and surveillance of Aipac's offices, he says. "The Israelis can get that stuff by going directly to Condoleezza Rice." In other words, it's not deeply technical knowledge about US satellite technology, for instance, or information the Americans had gotten from the Jordanians, or information about say a possible secret US back channel to Hezbollah. He wonders if this case is not politically motivated. It's no secret as well that there's intense competition over who would be national security advisor in a second term Bush administration. Anything that taints Feith and Wolfowitz could benefit their internal Bush administration foes.

We obviously haven't heard the last of this yet. Stay tuned.

Update: Or does this story leaking now indicate rather, a case of "controlled burn?" An investigation that was leaked or interrupted before it could go further, as reader MC suggests? Franklin is seemingly more expendable than others.

Update II: I can't get over the sense this is a ruse, to get somebody else. As Wagster writes in the comments below:

The NYT reports tonight:

Government officials suggested Friday that investigators were seeking the cooperation of the Pentagon official being investigated.

Doesn't that seem to hint that they're using the media to put some heat on the guy, and that they suspect the involvement of others? Why else would they be seeking his cooperation?

Why else indeed.

[Stephanie]

62. Check her updates - she's not so sure now

Update: Or does this story leaking now indicate rather, a case of "controlled burn?" An investigation that was leaked or interrupted before it could go further, as reader MC suggests? Franklin is seemingly more expendable than others.

Update II: I can't get over the sense this is a ruse, to get somebody else. As Wagster writes in the comments below:

The NYT reports tonight:

Government officials suggested Friday that investigators were seeking the cooperation of the Pentagon official being investigated.

Doesn't that seem to hint that they're using the media to put some heat on the guy, and that they suspect the involvement of others? Why else would they be seeking his cooperation?

Why else indeed.

[faithnotgreed]

65. theres now an update III: a source tells her there must be more going on

here

and that what cbs reported and what she reported are maybe 2 parts of the story, a pattern

[Hell Hath No Fury]

92. I was coming to the same conclusion,,,

who the heck needs spies or a "mole" when you Perle, Wolfie, et al there??? Is this spy story just the first step to the bigger fish or is someone trying to let the small fry take the fall?

[Dover]

53. Inside Rummy's Office (by Jim Gilliam)

Inside Rummy's Office, Part 2

August 8, 2003 02:30 PM

Looks like Rummy needs to clean house:
Pentagon hardliners pressing for regime change in Iran have held secret and unauthorized meetings in Paris with a controversial arms dealer who was a major figure in the Iran-contra scandal, according to administration officials.

At least two Pentagon officials (Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin) working for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith have held "several" meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian middleman in U.S. arms-for-hostage shipments to Iran in the mid-1980s.

The senior official and another administration source who confirmed that the meetings had taken place said that the ultimate policy objective of Feith and a group of neo-conservatives civilians inside the Pentagon is regime change in Iran.

He confirmed that Secretary of State Colin Powell complained directly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld several days ago about Feith's policy shop conducting missions that countered U.S. policy.

Harold Rhode has gotten himself in trouble before:..cont'd
http://www.jimgilliam.com/2003/08/inside_rummys_office_part_2.php

[struggle4progress]

55. Defense aide probed as a spy for Israel

FBI seeing if classified material was passed
Saturday, August 28, 2004
BY CURT ANDERSON

<snip>
KRT News Service, quoting unnamed adminstration officials, said federal investigators have conducted interviews in recent weeks in the potentially explosive case, which has been ongoing for more than a year.

KRT said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity, said the FBI also is investigating the same official's contacts with Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi and with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a controversial Iranian arms dealer. Chalabi was a source of much of the discredited pre-Iraq war intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.

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.
<snip>

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1093668682142420.xml

[grasswire]

56. this looks important

".......It was created in Sharon's office, not inside Israel's Mossad intelligence service, because the Mossad--which prides itself on extreme professionalism--had views closer to the CIA's, not the Pentagon's, on Iraq."

So this Israeli "rump" unit is opposed to neo-con imperialism? Or opposed to the Pentagon's development of its own intel?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

93. I kind of got the impression...

they were the Sharon version of the OSP -- an office designed to gin up intel to support an invasion into Iraq and beyond. It appears Mossad and Cia were both saying the same thing -- the evidence does not support what is being said about Iraq/Saddam, so both Sharon and Rummie created offices that would produce a product that did.

[redsoxliberal]

58. Let's 'attempt' a very crude summary

US citizen, Israeli spy caught in Pentagon.
Linked to Niger forgery.
Linked to Wolfowitz, Feith
Under Lutti
Israel, Lobby group vehemently deny
Franklin and/or Rhode most likely suspects
Suspect being asked to co-operate (possibly much more linked to top than just the spy.)
Investigation underway for a year?


I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot.

[Elidor]

63. A modest summary as I understand it so far:

Several key neocon Bush administration officials who played key roles in the Iran-Contra scandal are at the center of a spy scandal involving intelligence passed to Israel by a senior member of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, the shadow intelligence group set up inside the Pentagon to politicize intelligence and build a case for the invasion of Iraq.

Whew. That’s a headless octopus right there. One of these people is apparently an Israeli spy. And when he isn’t passing classified position papers back to his bosses, he’s passing along to Washington tainted intelligence and forged documents alleging that Iraq under Saddam Hussein has tried to buy yellowcake from Niger. These documents may have been forged by a secretive group working as an alternate shadow intelligence/political operation being run out of the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Iran-Contra figure and likely Israeli agent Manucher Ghorbanifar seems to have played a key role in the acquisition of the documents by two senior analysts in the Office of Special Plans, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, who met with Ghorbanifar in Rome at the time the forgeries surfaced.

The documents were at the center of George Bush’s claim in his 2003 State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein, having tried to buy uranium from Niger, was an immediate threat to America. They were dismissed by CIA experts as crude forgeries, and the story they implied was discredited by ambassador Joe Wilson, whose wife, a CIA undercover operative specializing in WMD, was subsequently exposed in political retaliation by members of the Vice President’s staff closely linked to Rhode and Franklin.

Rhode is a political hack appointed to “purge career Defense officials who weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Wolfowitz and Feith wanted.”

Maddeningly, someone else in the Office of Special Plans has apparently leaked classified defense data to Ahmad Chalabi, who has been an Iranian intelligence asset for many years and was suspect by the CIA. An investigation into that leak has been ongoing.

All of these people are the blood brothers of neocon aristocracy and are very close to Dick Cheney. He's the thread that brings them all together.

[grasswire]

64. Remember?

Wasn't it Joe Wilson who said the forged paper might have been a setup by someone in our own intelligence?

Keep remembering that the ultimate action of all this chicanery is a thousand dead U.S. men and women.

[Ms. Clio]

69. ...and 37,000 dead Iraqis and still counting n/t

[Dover]

66. Nice summary.........but does it go further?

Are the neocons also tied to 9/11 and other "terrorist" activity?

I ask because, as some have documented here, Ashcroft has repeatedly sent Israeli spys who have been arrested, home to Israel rather than deterring them for further interrogation. And I believe Senator Leahy suggested in a letter to Ashcroft that the FBI was also infiltrated by an Israeli with dual citizenship, who derailed the FBI investigation.

[jean]

74. talk about 'shadowy groups!'

[realFedUp]

84. Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"

Do these Pee-Too's have anything to do with
this situation?

http://www.notinourname.net/war/darkness-1nov03.htm

Into the Dark
The Pentagon plan to provoke terrorist attacks
"Let's say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of innocent people."

Chris Floyd
CounterPunch
November 1, 2003

According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization--the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.

In other words--and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld's plan--the United States government is planning to use "cover and deception" and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. Let's say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of innocent people--your family, your friends, your lovers, you--in order to further their geopolitical ambitions.

For P2OG is not designed solely to flush out terrorists and bring them to justice--a laudable goal in itself, although the Rumsfeld way of combating terrorism by causing it is pure moral lunacy. (Or should we use the Regime's own preferred terminology and just call it "evil"?) No, it seems the Pee-Twos have bigger fish to fry. Once they have sparked terrorists into action--by killing their family members? luring them with loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with their mamas? or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then plan and direct the attacks themselves?--they can then take measures against the "states/sub-state actors accountable" for "harboring" the Rumsfeld-roused gangs. What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: "Their sovereignty will be at risk."

continued

[Stephanie]

67. CHALABI TIES IN!

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity, said the FBI also is investigating the same official's contacts with Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi and with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a controversial Iranian arms dealer. Chalabi was a source of much of the discredited pre-Iraq war intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida.

In June, U.S. intelligence officials said they had evidence that Chalabi's security chief had long been a paid agent of Iran's intelligence service and that Chalabi or an aide in his Iraqi National Congress had tipped the Iranians off that the United States had broken some Iranian communications codes. Chalabi has denied the charge.

The CIA has twice labeled Ghorbanifar, a figure in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, untrustworthy. Nevertheless, two Pentagon officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who worked on Iraq policy for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, met secretly with Ghorbanifar to discuss Iran.

http://www.warandpiece.com/

[Stephanie]

70. Newsweek - other officials may also have passed other info to Israel

"But according to one senior government source, the investigation has been ongoing for over a year and has also focused on other officials in Feith's operation who may have passed other information on to Israel."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usfbi2808,0,3722002.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines


Is there going to be a neo-con roundup!!! Are they ALL going to prison? FROG MARCH! Line 'em up!

[Swamp Rat]

72. Some visual references:

George W. Bush, Iraqi Governing Counsel member Dr. Jalal Talabani, and Chalabi:


Chalabi has some other interesting friends:

Rick Santorum and Chalabi:


Trent Lott and Chalabi:


Jesse Helms and Chalabi:

[Dover]

73. Washington's Chalabi nightmare (Salon)

Washington's Chalabi nightmare


One more headache for the besieged Bush administration: The FBI is now interrogating the neocon cronies of Ahmed Chalabi.

By Sidney Blumenthal

May 27, 2004 | At a well-appointed conservative think tank in downtown Washington and across the Potomac River at the Pentagon, FBI agents have begun paying quiet calls on prominent neoconservatives, who are being interviewed in an investigation of potential espionage, according to intelligence sources. Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about the plans of the U.S. government and military?

The Iraqi neocon favorite, tipped to lead his liberated country post-invasion, has been identified by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency as an Iranian double agent, passing secrets to that citadel of the "axis of evil" for decades. All the while the neocons cosseted, promoted and arranged for more than $30 million in Pentagon payments to the George Washington manqué of Iraq. In return, he fed them a steady diet of disinformation, and in the run-up to the war he sent various exiles to nine nations' intelligence agencies to spread falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction. If the administration had wanted other material to provide a rationale for invasion, no doubt that would have been fabricated. Either Chalabi perpetrated the greatest con since the Trojan horse or he was the agent of influence for the most successful intelligence operation conducted by Iran, or both.


The CIA and other U.S. agencies had long ago decided that Chalabi was a charlatan, so their dismissive and correct analysis of his lies prompted their suppression by the Bush White House. In place of the normal channels of intelligence vetting, a jury-rigged system was hastily constructed, running from the office of the vice president to the newly created Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon, staffed by fervent neocons. CIA Director George Tenet, possessed with the survival instinct of the inveterate staffer, ceased protecting the sanctity of his agency and cast in his lot with Cheney et al. Secretary of State Colin Powell, resistant internally but eventually overcome, decided to become the most ardent champion, unveiling a series of neatly manufactured lies before the United Nations. Last week Powell declared, "It turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that I'm disappointed, and I regret it." But who had "deliberately" misled him? He did not say. Now the FBI is investigating espionage, fraud and by implication treason....cont'd

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/05/27/chal...

(Will need to get a Day Pass at Salon to finish the article

[EST]

76. My eyes are crossing from rereadx2

Some points are still bugging me and don't want to go away.
We know these last two big reports were major coverups/whitewash.
Out of the Senate IC Jay Rockefeller is still visibly pissed and looks like he knows a lot of shit and is going to explode if this forced vacation doesn't cool him down?
Kissinger was selected/unselected to lead 911 commish
All of the SIC and 911 are heavy to very heavy hitters who are not social outcasts nor particularly introverted, yet they are toeing the line pretty well.
What is strong enough to force a unanimous decision and not a peep since then from both groups.
Sibel has been everywhere-even I took up the sword and tried to invoke some action from favorite and not so favorite pols. Nothing for me and Sibel E seems to be inside an anechoic chamber.
The real problem they'll let us in on is stovepiping, yet there is this shadowy web that infiltrates and cross communicates through everything. This ain't stovepiping. Just as a small thing, CIA-George was the only one yelling about undue pressure a year and a half ago and they held the door open for him.
Why did JFK suddenly out-of-the-blue (at least to me) swear undying fealty to Israel-shocking? You guys with the heavier brains amuse/amaze me. I'm going to bed.

[matcom]

77. kick

KEEP IT COMING FOLKS!!

[starroute]

78. I can't make sense of the Chalabi-Iran connection

Most of the story seems to point towards Israel covertly pushing the US towards war with Iran. This is something that has been going on since at least 1996. Michael Ledeen has been promoting it for a long time. And the early stories yesterday on the mole-in-the-Pentagon suggested the main episode under investigation involved the forwarding of US policy deliberations on Iran to Israel.

Chalabi has his own links to Israel. His nephew Salem is partners with Marc Zell, who is also partners with Douglas Feith.

And yet the current word is that Chalabi is secretly an Iranian agent who has been passing information to Iran to help them against the US.

So which is it? Is Chalabi a double agent who bamboozled all the neocons but whose ultimate loyalties are to Iran? (And if so, why? What would he have to gain?) Or are the accusations against Chalabi a way for the neocons to disassociate themselves from him without revealing the actual reason? (Or is the CIA working to discredit Chalabi in order to promote their boy Allawi?)

Can anyone make any sense of this?

[chookie]

88. Chalabi's loyalties are to Chalabi

He's capable of anything to get into power.

He has cultivated relations with both Israel and Iran -- to get their support to overthrow Saddam and install him. No doubt he has different versions of his agenda to offer to each.

Chalabi was the golden boy of the NeoCons because not only was he working with them to overthrown Saddam, but had made them a promise: on Day One of his Presidency, he would privatise the Iraqi oil industry, and on Day 3 he would declare a truce with Israel.

He was also working with the Shi-ites in Iran, trying to involve them in the overthrow of Saddam. As he has been publically discredited of late, he is now the champion of Al Sadr, and is trying to establish himself as political ruler of the united Shi-ites.

I have no proof of this, but I suspect he was also supplying intelligence on Iran to Israel.

He was playing everyone. He was too valuable a traitor for any one to rat out.

He was probably also involved in providing information to the Bush administration about how to foment dissent and revolution in Iran, i.e. the student protests of last year, which Bush crowed about as a cry for freedom by an enslaved people, begging to be rescued from despotism just like the Iraqis were.

Interesting that Chalabi was informed of his warrant for arrest while he was in Iran. As far as I know, he remains there....

[Algorem]

79. Arrest could come as early as next week says law enforcement official;

CBS tv just now.Don't know if that's new but I don't bleev they said anything else new.

[H2O Man]

85. A question for William Pitt:

In recent weeks, some of us have begun a small-scale effort to send letters-to-the-editor of newspapers and magazines on issues such as the Plame case. The most recent thread regarding this effort is Instant Karma: Plame, on GD.

Do you think that it is worth-while to have DUers write, e-mail, and/or call specific media sources to request more stories (immediately) on the "spy" issue? This might take some of the wind out of the republican convention's coverage.

If so, which medias might you think would be most beneficial to target?

I would suggest that we should write and raise one or two issues that might rouse the public's interest. I'd think that trying to reach the mainstream American public would be important right now. Just as the republicans planned the Swift Boat Liars campaign for after the democratic convention, we should be preparing to knock the legs out from under the administration with this.

I would appreciate your opinion on this. And, on
bviously, other DUers'.

[ScreamingMeemie]

86. Slap my butt and call me Sally! I actually heard an actual newscaster

actually say that this should actually cost Rumsfield and Wolfowitz their jobs. MSNBC this morning....and then cut to the bicycling bad boys...

Of course, I am not going to get too excited.

[realFedUp]

87. Definitely a John Le Carre book

Too bad he isn't a reporter.

[chookie]

89. Could, or should?

It certainly SHOULD.

But could it? Not for the foreseeable future.

How it will be played: 1)Larry Johnson is a low level bureaucrat that no one ever had anything to do with. Maybe they were in the men's room with him once, or something, but that's it.

2) What's the problem? After all, America and Israel have common security interests; we are one, united against dangerous foes. Just get off the backs of these Patriots, and let them do their jobs.

They will also smear anyone who dares examine this story as an Anti-Semite -- a charge that spineless Democrats will not be willing to refute this close to an election, even though they must.

If he is (re)elected, Bush will be impeached for this.

But he and Cheney have made it very difficult to pursue the trail, by executive orders barring access from presidential papers, and pardons. This is but the latest chapter in Iran-Contra; I personally would go as far as to say this is the latest emanation of the "Bay of Pigs thing."

[ScreamingMeemie]

90. The word was should. But again, I'm not going to hold my breath.

And I agree with you. Sad, isn't it? Now picture if this had happened say...5 years ago.

[redsoxliberal]

91. kick

this story needs to stay alive.

[ScreamingMeemie]

94. Kick

:kick:

[realFedUp]

95. Harold Rhode

one of the more interesting neo-con roaches....
go to the site for direct links.

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Harold_Rhode

Harold Rhode

Harold Rhode is a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense.<1>

According to Jason Vest's September 2, 2002, article "The Men From JINSA and CSP," Harold Rhode and Andrew Marshall, from the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, "actively tinker with ways to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi Arabian governments."

In their January 26, 2004, Mother Jones article "The Lie Factory", Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest write:

"Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Douglas Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith's office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down the law about the department's new anti-Iraq, and broadly anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no 'bartering in the bazaar anymore.... You're going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so.'

"Rhode refused to be interviewed for this story, saying cryptically, 'Those who speak, pay.'

"According to insiders, Rhode worked with Feith to purge career Defense officials who weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Paul D. Wolfowitz and Feith wanted. Rhode appeared to be 'pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with,' says a former analyst. 'They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the fuck out of there.'

"The unofficial, off-site recruitment office for Feith and Rhode was the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank whose 12th-floor conference room in Washington is named for the dean of neoconservative defense strategists, the late Albert Wohlstetter, an influential RAND Corporation analyst and University of Chicago mathematician. Headquartered at AEI is Richard Perle, Wohlstetter's prize protege, the godfather of the AEI-Defense Department nexus of neoconservatives who was chairman of the Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board. Rhode, along with Michael Rubin, a former AEI staffer who is also now at the Pentagon, was a ubiquitous presence at AEI conferences on Iraq over the past two years, and the two Pentagon officials seemed almost to be serving as stage managers for the AEI events, often sitting in the front row and speaking in stage whispers to panelists and AEI officials."

(this is a good site to find out about the others also)

[Cush]

96. Probe Widens

http://www.majority.com/news/upi-spy.htm

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9524480.htm

Key line from the second link:

Investigators are said to be looking at whether Franklin acted with authorization from his superiors, one official said.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

97. If there are any "white hats" from the intel...

community reading this:

Squash those damn cockroaches.

[realFedUp]

98. Definitely fumigate

I hope that's Kerry's first step
aside from changing the locks.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

99. Amen...

eom

[Dudley_DUright]

100. More from Laura Rozen (War and Piece blog)

More than just Franklin? That's what it sounds like from this new Knight Ridder Warren Strobel piece:

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

The probe, 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 highly classified U.S. intelligence to a leading Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, which may in turn have passed it on to Iran. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi has denied his group was involved in any wrongdoing.

The linkage, 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.

more...

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001069.html

[shraby]

103. Suppose all of this was leaked

to prevent Ashcroft from using his famous gag order?

[blitzen]

101. juan cole on the co-opting of AIPAC by right-wingers

http://juancole.com/

[redsoxliberal]

104. what does it all mean?

assuming they can only get franklin, what happens?

[Cush]

105. Iran Contra II ?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html

On Friday evening, CBS News reported that the FBI is investigating a suspected mole in the Department of Defense who allegedly passed to Israel, via a pro-Israeli lobbying organization, classified American intelligence about Iran. The focus of the investigation, according to U.S. government officials, is Larry Franklin, a veteran Defense Intelligence Agency Iran analyst now working in the office of the Pentagon's number three civilian official, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.

The investigation of Franklin is now shining a bright light on a shadowy struggle within the Bush administration over the direction of U.S. policy toward Iran. In particular, the FBI is looking with renewed interest at an unauthorized back-channel between Iranian dissidents and advisers in Feith's office, which more-senior administration officials first tried in vain to shut down and then later attempted to cover up

[redsoxliberal]

106. Breaking from war and piece

Ghorbanifar
The story is up, and I can now say that I tracked down and interviewed Ghorbanifar for it, earlier this month. With the current FBI investigation targeting those who met with him, I suspect I will be the last American journalist to do so for some time, but who knows, he's unpredictable, as are his American allies.

Go read the piece.

Key points:

1) The secret meetings between Pentagon officials and associates of Ghorbanifar in Europe went on for almost two years, a full year and a half longer than the Bush administration has acknowledged. Ghorbanifar told me of three meetings. While the Pentagon originally told the Post last year that Harold Rhode, an official in Feith's office, had simply run into Ghorbanifar in Paris in June 2003, Ghorbanifar tells me that the two spent weeks planning the meeting.

2) The Italian military intelligence organization SISMI provided logistics and security at the first meeting, in Rome, in December 2001. And the head of Sismi, Nicollo Pollari, as well as the Italian Defense Minister, Antonio Martino, attended the meeting, along with Michael Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, Pentagon officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin.

3) Ghorbanifar told me he has had fifty meetings with Michael Ledeen since September 11th, and that he has given Ledeen "4,000 to 5,000 pages of sensitive documents" concerning Iran, Iraq and the Middle East, “material no one else has received.” Ghorbanifar, speaking with me by telephone from France, says those meetings took place abroad because he has been refused a US visa the last two times he has applied.

4) Ghorbanifar has also been meeting with an assortment of other American officials, which I will write about later.

I will get more thoughts on the story up later. For now, go read the piece.

[shraby]

110. Two questions.....

There is one main reason for meeting with a notorious arms dealer..
to buy arms. Josh says they also received thousands of documents.

1. Who were the arms for?

2. Whose money was used to pay for them?

[shraby]

111. BUSH AIDE FACES QUIZ OVER LINKS TO ISRAELI SPY

(this is all there is in this paper)

BUSH AIDE FACES QUIZ OVER LINKS TO ISRAELI SPY

Richard Perle, one of President Bush’s closest allies, is expected to be questioned by the FBI this week about an Israeli spy in the Pentagon.

<http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3425187>