WASHINGTON, 28 February 2004 — Stephen Green, the author featured in last week’s story, “The Article That Almost Wasn’t” wrote in the foreword to “The Armageddon Network” 20 years ago, “What you are about to read is first a spy story. It involves, in the classic pattern, the apparent misappropriation of highly classified documents belonging to the US Department of Defense and unauthorized dissemination of these materials to a foreign government.”
Green went on to say, “Those that are involved in the affair are still ‘at large’ and in fact currently hold senior positions in the Pentagon....” and also states, “this is an unfinished story of a possible cover-up and effort to abort the normal investigating and prosecutorial processes...” Green is still pursuing some of the same individuals who were featured in “The Armageddon Network” two decades ago but many other American journalists and media outlets refuse to confront this issue because even though it deals with illicit activities with a foreign country, that country is America’s “sacred cow” — Israel.
Last week we noted that over 20 major publications had rejected Green’s current article titled “The Pentagon’s Internal Security Problem: Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Ledeen” featured in the online CounterPunch weekend edition of Feb. 28-29 entitled “Serving Two Flags”.
Green’s article begins by pointing out that neoconservatives in the Bush administration have effectively “gutted” traditional American foreign and security policy. He states that notable features of the new Bush doctrine include the pre-emptive use of unilateral force and the undermining of the principal instruments and institutions of international law including the UN all in the cause of fighting terrorism and promoting homeland security.
Green adds that some feel that the underlying agenda of the neocons is the alignment of US foreign and security policies with those of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli right wing.
Green asks whether the neocons, many of whom are senior officials in the Defense Department, National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President, had dual agendas while professing to work for the security of the United States against its terrorist enemies. He then proceeds to review the internal security backgrounds of some of the most prominent neocons and concludes that by looking at their security backgrounds, one can answer the questions that he poses in the article.
The individuals named in Green’s article include Stephen Bryen, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Let’s take a closer look at these individuals and how Green compiled the information on each of them.
Stephen Bryen and Michael Ledeen currently serve on the United States-China Economic Security and Review Commission. Both were appointed by the Republican congressional leaders in early 2001. Ledeen also serves as vice chairman of this China Commission. Additionally, according to Green, with the support of Department of Defense (DOD) Undersecretary Doulas Feith, Ledeen was employed as a consultant to the now infamous Office of Special Plans (OSP) in the DOD. Much has been written about the OSP and how major intelligence that led the US into the most recent war with Iraq was “cooked” in the OSP.
Green states that when a former senior FBI counterintelligence official heard of Bryen’s appointment to the China Commission, he said “My God, that must mean he has a ‘Q’ clearance. “ A “Q” clearance, which must be approved by the Department of Energy, is the designation for Top Secret codeword clearance to access nuclear technology.
Ledeen serving on both the China Commission and in the OSP would have access to classified materials and therefore would require high level security clearance.
Bryen and Ledeen have both been investigated by the US government extensively for improperly passing information to Israel.
In April of 1979 Deputy Assistant Attorney General Robert Keuch recommended in writing that Stephen Bryen, a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee undergo a Grand Jury hearing to establish the basis for a prosecution of Bryen of espionage for Israel. The investigation conducted over a year had over 1000 pages of information documenting many issues regarding Bryan’s relationship with Israel and leaking information to Israel.
In Green’s article he points out that after Bryen was appointed by Richard Perle to a high level DOD position during the Reagan administration and received another security clearance, he was confronted various times by his colleagues and superiors including current Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage about his overzealous attempts to help export restricted technology to Israel.
Michael Ledeen was hired by the DOD as a consultant on terrorism in 1983 and his immediate superior was Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch. Koch told Green that Ledeen had somehow obtained classified information that he should not have been allowed to see. Koch then informed his executive assistant that Ledeen was to be denied classified materials in the future.
In the mid-1990s Ledeen left the DOD and joined the National Security Council (NSC) as a consultant. In that capacity, Ledeen became a major player in the “Iran-Contra” scandal. Ledeen was noted for carrying messages to then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Ledeen had his NSC security clearance downgraded while in that position. He moved downward from Top Secret to Secret. Also in Iran-Contra document Oliver North recommended that Ledeen “be asked to take periodic polygraph examinations”. Noel Koch testified that he was suspicious of Ledeen because he learned that Ledeen was negotiating the sale of US basic TOW missiles for $2500 each when the normal cost to another foreign government was $6800 per missile. Throughout their governmental careers, Bryen and Ledeen have consistently been promoted to high-level defense and security positions by their fellow neocons; former Defense Advisory Board Chairman Richard Perle, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.
Journalist Sy Hersh has reported that in 1970 while Richard Perle was working for Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington, Perle was caught by an FBI wiretap discussing classified information with an official at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. And according to the New York Times, in 1978 CIA Director Stansfield Turner asked Sen. Jackson to fire Perle after Perle was named as a recipient of an unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Perle is currently embroiled in various other scandals including an investigation into his business dealings with Conrad Black and the Hollinger Corporation. Perle serves on the board of Hollinger and allegedly received a multimillion dollar unreported payment which potentially violates the law.
Paul Wolfowitz was brought into the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) in 1973. He was known, according to Green, for his “strong attachment to Israel’s security”. In 1978 an investigation was conducted after, according to Green, Wolfowitz was “found to have provided a classified document on the proposed sale of US arms to an Israeli official through an AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) intermediary.
Also, according to Green, in 1990 when Wolfowitz was undersecretary for policy in the DOD under then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, an investigation was conducted that indicated “Wolfowitz had been internally promoting the export to Israel of advanced AIM 9-M air-to-air missles” which were a restricted security item.
Douglas Feith has long been a major supporter of Israel. In 1982 Feith was a Middle East analyst for the NSC initially working under NSC head Richard Allen in the Reagan administration. When Allen was replaced by Judge William Clark, he fired nine staff members including Feith. According to Green, Feith was fired because he had been the subject of an FBI inquiry into whether, without authorization, he had provided classified information to a representative of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Stephen Green cites credible individuals and substantive documents in his article on these five current (as this article was being written Richard Perle announced his resignation from the Defense Policy Advisory Board) US government and government-related organizations. Though some of the 22 media outlets that rejected his article claimed there was “nothing new” in his piece, there is, in fact, much new and previously unreported public information in his commentary. That new information includes the 1978 inquiry on Paul Wolfowitz, the circumstances behind the Feith firing in 1982, the 1988 incidents concerning Bryen and the information on Ledeen provided by Noel Koch.
The most important point in the article is not just the interconnections of these five neocons. Perle hired Bryen 1981 to work at DOD. Wolfowitz hired Ledeen in 1981 as a special adviser. In 2001 Feith at DOD hired Ledeen as a consultant in the OSP.
Nor is it the assistance this group has given each other over the years. In 1973 Perle used his influence to help Wolfowitz obtain a job with the ACDA. In 1982 Perle assisted in hiring Feith at the DOD. In 2001 Wolfowitz helped Feith get his appointment at DOD and Feith appointed Perle as chairman of the Defense Policy Advisory Board.
And whatever sympathies these officials have to Israel is their own personal choice to which they have a right. Rather though, it is much more important that despite extensive investigations and files that exist on these individuals concerning leaking information to a foreign government, they continue to receive top level government positions and the highest level security clearances. It is not necessarily what is in these files that determines whether they receive security clearances, it is who does the hiring or appointing and whether the appointer feels that the appointee should receive the security clearance. And in the cases of Bryen, Ledeen, Perle, Wolfowitz and Feith, they each have usually managed to be the official that makes the decision about each other.
Former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Aikens in reviewing “The Armageddon Network” in 1984 said, “(The Armageddon Network) describes how high-placed American government officials have confused their loyalties; the story is a frightening one. Even more frightening is the failure of the American government to determine what damage has been done to the United States through their misguided action. The book is an instructive lesson on how the American government can be manipulated.”
Sound familiar?
— Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.
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