WASHINGTON, 1 January 2006 — First came the news last year that two high-ranking employees of America’s top pro-Israel lobby were caught spying for Tel Aviv and a Pentagon analyst was providing them with the information. Now we learn that that these former employees of AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — are contemplating suing the influential lobby. Lawrence Franklin, 58, was one of the Pentagon’s policy experts on Iran and the Middle East. He was indicted in June on charges of leaking national defense information – including potential attacks on US forces in Iraq — to those not entitled to receive it.
These two senior officials – Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman – are now considering suing AIPAC, which had initatially agreed to pay their legal fees. One of the lawyers AIPAC hired to handle their legal defense was lawyer Nathan Lewin, the same lawyer who defended suspected Israeli spy Stephen Bryen in 1978.
Those close to Rosen and Weissman say AIPAC may regret its decision.. Rosen’s and Weissman’s lawyers have been exploring defense strategies, many of which could be damanging to AIPAC. The two sides’ conflicting arguments are likely to collide in court, which is scheduled to start late April 2006. Last week, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that AIPAC had stopped payments to Rosen’s and Weissman’s lawyers, and this week The Forward quotes sources who say the organization “is trying to protect itself not only against financial damages but also against damage to its reputation, while fending off ongoing pressure from the government.” Here’s their problem: Rosen is not merely another AIPAC official. He joined the lobby 20 years ago after the struggle over the sale of AWACS surveillance equipment to Saudi Arabia, a struggle that AIPAC lost but that put it on the map at Capitol Hill.Weissman was the organization’s top Iran expert.
The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News, which broke the story last year, was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.
The conspiracy involved not just Franklin and AIPAC’s Rosen and Weissman, but several other Pentagon officials who played intermediary roles, at least two other Israeli officials, and one official at a “Washington, D.C. think tank,” the American Enterprise Institute Franklin worked in the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, run by Richard Perle, at the time Perle (who was caught giving classified information to Israel back in 1970) was insisting that Iraq was concealing with weapons of mass destruction requiring the United States to invade and conquer Iraq. There were no WMDs, of course, and Perle – who has since left the Pentagon — dumped the blame for the “bad intelligence” on former CIA head George Tenet. But what is known is that the Pentagon Office of Special Plans was coordinating with a similar group in Israel, in Ariel Sharon’s office. The leaking of the investigation of AIPAC to the media on August 28th, 2004 gave advance warning to other spies working with Franklin. The damage to the FBI’s investigation was completed when United States Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered the FBI to stop all arrests in the case. The long-running investigation has been closely followed in Washington, The case also has served as a reminder of a tense time in US-Israeli relations: the 1985 scandal in which civilian Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard was caught spying for Israel. Tel Aviv said it imposed a ban on espionage in the United States after the Pollard scandal. He was sentenced to life in prison.
