@@ Why did Douglas Feith resign? @@
Arash
May 30, 2005
Why Did Douglas Feith Resign?
Could it have had something to do with the Larry Franklin spy scandal?
By Justin Raimondo
editorial director
http://www.jta.org/storage/articleimages/15373.jpg
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/images/franklin_1.jpg
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/05/05/national/05spy.184.jpg
http://story.news.yahoo.com/photo/050504/480/vakw10105042216/print
Lawrence (larry) Franklin
Part time lecturer of modern World
Department of History
Shepherd College
Shepherdstown, West Virginia
Office: White Hall, room 316
email: lfrankli at shepherd.edu
Tel: 1-304-876-5329
The headline of this New York Sun article by Eli Lake (http://www.nysun.com/article/14523)
on the progress of the case (http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/dod/usfrnkln50305cmp.pdf)
against Lawrence A. Franklin, a Pentagon Iran analyst accused of handing over sensitive
information to Israel, has got to take the cake for sheer gall: "Pentagon Analyst In
Israel Spy Case Is Called a 'Patriot' "!
You can't make this stuff up.
"Larry Franklin" was recently arrested (http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5857) and
charged with revealing top secret information to two employees of the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aipac), who then informed Israeli
officials. It turns out that the person calling "Larry Franklin" a "patriot" is none other
than his lawyer, the famed "Plato Cacheris"
(http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources/legends_in_the_law/cacheris.cfm), whose
clients have included Russian spy "Robert Hanssen"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen), Cuban spy "Ana Belen Montes"
(http://www.sptimes.com/2002/03/21/Worldandnation/Come_clean_and_live__.shtml), and
"Monica Lewinsky" (http://www.ishipress.com/cacheris.htm), but even so: Come on!
Yeah, he's a "patriot" all right – but on behalf of which country? Israel, of course.
Surely not the United States of America.
As the "Larry Franklin" spy scandal metastasizes
(http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6068) from what his defenders were earlier calling a
"kerfuffle" (fuss) into a major deal
(http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12365), the news of his arrest bodes
ill for Israel's amen corner in the U.S. In spite of a lot of palaver
(http://www.townhall.com/columnists/joelmowbray/jm20050525.shtml) about how AIPAC is
weathering the storm, the lobby's legendary power – once touted as among the top five most
powerful lobbies in Washington – is permanently crippled.
Until recently, AIPAC stoutly denied that any of their employees had engaged in illegal
activities: it was only when the apparent scope of the charges against Steve Rosen
(http://www.jta.org/storage/articleimages/15423.jpg), AIPAC's longtime policy director,
and foreign policy specialist (http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/reports/SPC02pb.pdf) Keith
Weissman (http://www.richardsilverstein.com/photos/uncategorized/weissman.jpg) was made
known to AIPAC's legal counsel that they stopped denying the obvious and threw Rosen and
Weissman overboard. They still insist that AIPAC itself is not under investigation, a
delusion that may evaporate as quickly as their protestations on behalf of their two
former employees.
Even more damaging, however, is the revelation that Larry Franklin was maintaining a
storehouse of top secret information in his West Virginia home, the basis for a second
charge for which he was arraigned on May 27. We didn't hear much about that arraignment
for unlawful possession of 83 classified documents spanning three decades – 38 of which
were classified "top secret" – but a few local news outlets carried the story
(http://www.wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=3014):
"The criminal complaint was based in part on the following six documents:
1. Terrorist Threat Integration Center, terrorism situation report – top
secret/sensitive compartmented information (SCI), dated June 8, 2004.
2. Central Intelligence Agency document concerning Al-Qaida – top secret/SCI, dated
June 9, 2004.
3. CIA document concerning Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaida – secret/SCI, dated Oct. 7,
2003.
4. CIA document concerning Al-Qaida – secret, dated May 12, 2004.
5. CIA memorandum on Iraq – secret, dated June 4, 2004.
6. CIA defense executive intelligence view concerning terrorists – secret, dated June
10, 2004".
In disdaining the severity of the charges against Franklin, neocon ideologue David Frum
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/frum/frum.php) described the information passed on to
Israel via AIPAC as something "which anyone, even the Israelis, can purchase a copy of for
35 cents" – the price for a single copy of the Washington Post, which supposedly had
revealed the contents of a policy paper on Iran. It now turns out that the policy paper
was the least of it. One wonders if Frum is willing to reconsider his judgement. Somehow,
I tend to doubt it.
Similarly, Michael Ledeen (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/ledeen/ledeen.php), writing
in the same formerly conservative publication – where else but National Review? –
screeched "McCarthyism!" (an odd charge to issue from the pages of a magazine whose
founding editor authored a book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0870001108)
defending 'Tailgunner Joe' (nickname of Joe McCarthy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy) as heroic, albeit misunderstood).
Michael Ledeen challenged the investigators: "Put up or shut up".
Now that they have put up, it is Ledeen and his cohorts who have apparently shut up
(http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P2079). The usually loquacious defenders of
Israel, especially in the right-wing precincts of the "blogosphere", are inexplicably
silent, too. Or perhaps their having been suddenly struck dumb is all too explicable:
after all, what is there to say about Franklin's treasure trove of American secrets except
that it could not be more incriminating? However, the question of who and what is being
incriminated here goes way beyond Franklin.
As Matt Yglesias points out (http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/top_secret.html),
Larry Franklin, even with his intelligence background, would not have had access to highly
sensitive compartmented information: the material dealing with al-Qaeda would certainly
seem to fit into this category.
We have to ask: On whose behalf was Franklin storing a "terrorism situation report"
labeled "SCI" (Sensitive Compartmental Information) – the second highest category of
classified information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information), several
degrees above "classified," "secret," and "top secret" – and, even more intriguingly,
where did he get it?
The resignation of Defense Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith
(http://www.antiwar.com/orig/barry.php?articleid=3545), Franklin's boss, as investigators
close in on the Israeli spy nest embedded in his department now has to be seen in a new
light. As Professor Juan Cole
(http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/feith-resigns-under-pressure-of.html) pointed out back in
January, when Feith's departure was announced:
"Feith has been questioned by the FBI in relation to the passing by one of his employees
of confidential Pentagon documents to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which
in turn passed them to the Israeli embassy. The Senate Intelligence Committee is also
investigating Feith. There seems little doubt that he operated in the Pentagon in such a
way as to produce false and misleading 'intelligence,' that he created an entirely false
impression of Iraqi weapons capabilities and ties to al-Qaeda, and that he is among the
chief facilitators of the U.S. war in Iraq.
"Feith is clearly resigning ahead of the possible breaking of major scandals concerning
his tenure at the Department of Defense, which is among the more disgraceful cases of the
misleading of the American people in American history".
Will the "Franklin-Rosen-Weissman" investigation implicate Douglas Feith
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Feith) – or someone higher up in the Washington food
chain?
Get out the chips-and-dip, pull up a chair, and get ready for the trial that is going to
rock the War Party to its very foundations. It's going to be quite a show. As a prelude,
go and check out my article on the Franklin affair in the June 20 issue of 'The American
Conservative' (http://www.amconmag.com/2005_06_06/feature.html).
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
For the real lowdown on the nature and extent of Israel's covert activities in the U.S.,
get yourself a copy of my short book, "The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595296823).
Buy it, read it, and then ask yourself: why would an Israeli spy want access to highly
sensitive U.S. intelligence regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden?