Haaretz
August 28, 2004
WASHINGTON - The Web site of the Washington Post
on Saturday quoted two sources who identified the Pentagon employee who
allegedly spied for Israel as Larry Franklin, a desk officer in the
Defense Department's Near East and South Asia Bureau.
According to
the Post, the sources said Franklin worked at the Defense Intelligence
Agency before moving to the Pentagon's policy branch three years ago and
is nearing retirement.
The newspaper also quotes a law enforcement
official as saying that the information allegedly passed by Franklin went
to Israel through the pro-Israel lobby group the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Meanwhile, a federal law enforcement
agent said Saturday that arrests in the Federal Bureau of Intelligence
investigation into the alleged spying could come as soon as next week.
The American TV network CBS reported Friday that the FBI has been
conducting an ongoing investigation into the matter and is convinced the
spy has conveyed highly sensitive information to the Israeli government
via two representatives of AIPAC.
The CBS report only identified
the suspected mole as a senior analyst who works in the bureau of Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He was also said to be closely associated with
two senior Pentagon officials, Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith.
"The FBI has a full-fledged
espionage investigation under way and is about to... roll up someone [who]
agents believe has been spying, not for an enemy, but for Israel, from
within the office of the secretary of defense," CBS reported.
The
network said that the mole, whom it described as a "trusted analyst of the
Pentagon," had last year passed on "secret White House deliberation on
Iran."
The New York Times reported the analyst worked for Feith,
who created a special intelligence unit before the Iraq war that had
sought to build a case that Baghdad had ties to Al-Qaida - a position that
has been criticized by intelligence professionals.
Asked whether
the suspect worked under Feith, the number three Pentagon official, and
William Luti, a senior official in the Pentagon's policy section, Pentagon
spokesman Lawrence Di Rita declined comment.
"It's a criminal
matter and we don't comment on criminal matters," he said.
CBS also
reported that FBI investigators are concerned that Israel may have used
him in an effort to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq, but the
Defense Department said Saturday that the mole would not have had any
influence on decision-making at that level.
Shortly after the
September 11, 2001 attacks, Feith and Luti set up the intelligence unit,
which ended up finding a close relationship between Al-Qaida and Iraq that
later became an important element for invading Iraq.
The FBI has
notified Rumsfeld about the investigation and has asked AIPAC to provide
it with information about the two representatives in the organization who
are suspected of involvement in the affair.
In a statement released
Friday, the Pentagon said that it was cooperating with the Justice
Department in the investigation, and downplayed the possibility that the
suspect had sought to sway U.S. policy in the Gulf or Middle
East.
"The investigation involves a single individual at the
Department of Defense at the desk officer level who was not in a position
to have significant influence over U.S. policy," it said.
"Nor
could a foreign power be in a position to influence U.S. policy through
this individual. To the best of the Department of Defense's knowledge, the
investigation does not target any other Department of Defense
individuals."
The Israeli embassy in Washington issued a statement
categorically denying the allegations as "completely false and
outrageous."
AIPAC issued a statement saying "we
would not condone or tolerate, for a second, any violation of U.S. law or
interests. We are fully cooperating with the governmental authorities and
will continue to do so."
In late 2001, Franklin and another Defense
Department official, Harold Rhode, met with an exiled Iranian businessman,
Manucher Ghorbanifar, who had been involved in the Iran-Contra scandal of
the 1980s.
Questioned about the meeting in August 2003, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it was "absolutely not" the case that the
meeting with Ghorbanifar was intended to be part of any other ongoing,
unofficial talks with Iranians.
A senior U.S. official, however,
said on condition of anonymity that two other Iranians were present at the
meeting who the Bush administration had been told had information useful
to the U.S. in its then-fledgling global war on terrorism.
In
November of 1985, U.S. naval intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard was
arrested at the gates of the Israeli embassy in Washington, on espionage
charges. He was tried, convicted and handed a life sentence for spying for
Israel.
Israel apologized for the incident and disbanded the
intelligence cell of which Pollard was a part.