WASHINGTON, 31 December 2004 — Washington was aghast when news broke accusing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israeli lobby, of passing on top-secret US information to the Israeli government. Now Jewish newspapers are reporting the FBI used the Pentagon’s top Iran analyst in a “sting operation” to pass “foreign policy strategic information to two AIPAC officials.”
Earlier this year, the US accused a Defense Department analyst, Lawrence Franklin, of passing classified US information on Iran to Israel.
The FBI investigation into AIPAC’s activities began after it monitored a conversation between Franklin and reporters at CBS News. During the call he allegedly revealed information about “aggressive Iranian policy in Iraq,” says The Forward, a weekly Jewish newspaper based in New York.
Janine Zechariah in the Jerusalem Post first reported the FBI sting, saying Franklin was unaware that FBI’s counterintelligence division was monitoring his May 2004 conversation with the CBS reporters.
Franklin allegedly revealed sensitive intelligence information which “compromised methods of intelligence gathering,” says the paper.
One of those reporters, said Forward, was Adam Ciralsky, a former lawyer at the CIA who sued the agency after he quit in 1999. Ciralsky said he was harassed for his Jewish roots and his connection to Israel.
The paper claims that Franklin himself was under investigation since the FBI discovered that in December 2001 he met with former Iranian spy and arms merchant Manucher Ghorabanifar. The meeting was not “authorized.” It was only after Franklin’s telephone conversation last May, however, that the FBI’s counterintelligence division felt they had enough evidence to close in on Franklin.
The FBI then put the pressure on Franklin to work as a counter espionage agent: “Threatened with charges of espionage and decades of imprisonment, Franklin was deployed to set up a sting against AIPAC,” says Forward, citing “sources.”
Franklin was terrified by the FBI threats says the paper, noting he is the sole supporter of his five children and wife who is said to be ill and confined to a wheelchair.
According the Jerusalem Post, the FBI put together a sting operation and instructed Franklin to offer AIPAC officials urgent classified information about Iranian plans to kidnap and murder Israelis in northern Iraq. It is unclear whether this information is true or merely bait. Nor does it specify what the Israelis were doing in northern Iraq.
In July, Franklin passed on this information to Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s director of foreign policy issues and Keith Weissman, an Iran specialist, during a luncheon in Washington.
With this information in hand, the AIPAC officials then allegedly contacted the Israeli Embassy. Within the month, the FBI counterintelligence division raided the AIPAC offices and confiscated files. Shortly afterwards and delivered subpoenas to both Rosen and Weissman.
On Dec. 1, the FBI issued subpoenas to four additional AIPAC staffers, all of whom are due to appear before a grand jury within the next two weeks. AIPAC says it is the “victim of a witch hunt” and Franklin is not speaking to the press.
What is not known is who leaked the information of the Aug. 27 FBI counterintelligence’s raid on AIPAC. The raid and the information about “a Pentagon “mole” working with AIPAC were immediately leaked to CBS, says Forward.
CBS’ Leslie Stahl broke the story on the network’s evening news. While on its website, CBS headlined: “The FBI believes it has ‘solid’ evidence that the suspected mole supplied Israel with classified materials that include secret White House policy deliberations on Iran.”
As a result of the operation against Franklin and AIPAC, four congressmen have asked the Bush administration to brief Congress on the FBI investigation.
