NEW YORK, 29 August 2004 — An Israeli spy has been discovered at the highest levels of the Pentagon, FBI officials confirmed last night.
In what may be America’s most embarrassing security breach for years, the individual is said to be closely linked with pro-Israel Pentagon hawks Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and is accused of using the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as a conduit for leaks about secret White House policy deliberations on Iran to Israel.
Israel and Iran have been in an increasingly hostile war of words in recent months.
Two people who work for AIPAC are also said to be at the heart of the investigation. Both AIPAC and Israel have denied the spying allegations.
Middle East experts in Washington have expressed concerns that the Pentagon spy may have also used his influence to direct US policy in Israel’s favor. The agent is thought to have played a leading role in shaping US defense policy, raising fears he may have manipulated information in order to persuade the United States to attack Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of Israel.
The case also raises concern as to whether Israel used the security breach to try to influence US policy on the war in Iraq.
The spy investigation could not only strain US-Israeli relations but also muddy the Bush administration’s Middle East policy. The timing of the leak coincides with the start of the Republican National Convention in New York.
“This investigation has been going on for some time,” one senior Defense official said yesterday. “We were notified of it a long time ago and have been working closely with the Justice Department.”
The FBI investigation, headed by Dave Szady, said the Pentagon investigation included wiretapping and surveillance and searches of the suspected Pentagon employee’s computer.
No arrests have been made and the investigation is continuing, Pentagon and federal law enforcement officials said, adding that arrests in the case could come as early as next week.
Officials have refused to identify the Pentagon employee under investigation but said the person is an analyst in the office of Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, the Pentagon’s No. 3 official.
But the Washington Post identified the official as Larry Franklin, a mid-level Pentagon official who specializes in Iranian affairs. “Larry Franklin was described as a desk officer in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia Bureau, one of six regional policy sections. Franklin worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency before moving to the Pentagon’s policy branch three years ago and is nearing retirement,” the Post said.
The paper said the case was likely to attract intense attention because the official being investigated worked under William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary of defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs. Luti oversaw the Pentagon’s “Office of Special Plans,” which conducted some early policy work for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
That office is one of two Pentagon offices that Bush administration critics have claimed were set up by Defense Department hawks to bypass the CIA and other intelligence agencies, providing information that President Bush and others used to exaggerate the Iraqi threat, says the Post.
The other office was run by Luti’s superior, Feith, and was known as the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group. Feith reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who in turn reports to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Feith is an influential adviser to Rumsfeld who also oversaw the Pentagon’s defunct Office of Special Plans, which critics said fed policy-makers uncorroborated prewar intelligence on Iraq, especially involving purported ties with the Al-Qaeda terror network.
Pentagon officials have said the office was a small operation that provided fresh analysis on existing intelligence.
Reacting to the revelation, The New York Times said: “As a result, the investigation is likely to give rise to questions about whether Israel may have used the information to influence American policy in the Middle East.”
