Another Major Bush Scandal Brewing? Israel Leak

[DrFunkenstein]

Note: This may bring up the fact that duped Pentagon hawks were unknowingly leaking information to Iran through Chalabi.

WASHINGTON - The FBI has spent more than a year covertly investigating, including with the use of electronic surveillance, whether a Pentagon analyst funneled highly classified material to Israel, officials said Saturday. Prosecutors were still weighing whether to bring the most serious charge of espionage.

Although the information involved — material describing Bush administration policy toward Iran — was described as highly classified, prosecutors could determine that the crime involved falls short of espionage and could result in lesser but still serious charges of mishandling classified documents, the officials said.

The target of the probe was identified by the two officials as Larry Franklin, a senior analyst in a Pentagon office dealing with Middle East affairs. Franklin, who did not respond to a telephone message left at his office Saturday, formerly worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Franklin works in an office overseen by Douglas J. Feith, the defense undersecretary for policy. Feith is an influential aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld whose previous work included prewar intelligence on Iraq, including purported ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida terrorism network.

In August 2003, Franklin and a Pentagon colleague were in the news after it was disclosed they had met two years earlier with Manuchar Ghorbanifar, who was among the Iranians who suggested to the Reagan administration in the 1980s that profits from arms-for-hostages deals be funneled into covert arms shipments to U.S.-backed Contra rebels battling the leftist Nicaraguan government.

The investigation centers on whether Franklin passed classified U.S. material on Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the highly influential main Israeli lobbying organization in Washington, and whether that group in turn passed them on to Israel. Both AIPAC and Israel deny the allegations.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&e=2&u=/ap/pentagon_spy_probe

Read this article!!!

[dennis4868]

1. Mainstreem MEDIA....

just move along, there is nothing to see here......

[still_one]

2. the "liberal media" is hardly talking about this weekend

[DrFunkenstein]

3. "Charges could be brought in the case as early as next week"

I can't guarantee this will be a big story - the way Chalabi should have been, but it just might pick up legs if there is something to it.