@@ Israel can do no wrong @@
Arash
May 25, 2005
AIPAC Holds National Meeting Amid Spy Scandal Investigation
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A Pentagon analyst accused of leaking top-secret information to a pro-Israel group faces a
new charge of illegally taking classified government documents out of the Washington area
to his West Virginia residence. Larry Franklin was arrested on May 4th for passing top
secret information to employees of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC -- the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee.
A Pentagon analyst accused of leaking top-secret information to a pro-Israel group faces a
new charge of illegally taking classified government documents out of the Washington area
to his West Virginia residence.
Larry Franklin - one of the Pentagon's top analysts working on Iran - was arrested on May
4th for passing top secret information to employees of the pro-Israel lobbying group
AIPAC -- the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The highly classified information
was then passed on to Israeli officials.
Yesterday, AIPAC closed its three day policy conference in Washington D.C. AIPAC is one of
the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington D.C. It is consistently ranked among the
top five most influential interest groups in Fortune magazine's poll of annual poll of
Washington insiders. APIAC has a $40 million annual budget, offices across the country and
a staff of lobbyists and researchers in the capital that work on persuading the U.S
government to continue sending billions of dollars in aid to Israel every year.
This conference was AIPAC's largest with 5000 participants. Speakers included Secretary of
State Condoleeza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. An AIPAC fact sheet about
the conference stated that there were "more members of Congress" in attendance "than
almost any other event, except for a joint session of Congress or a State of the Union
address".
AIPAC is not named in the criminal complaint but government officials had previously said
Franklin met with two officials from the organization at a restaurant in June 2003. Those
two men - AIPAC's policy director Steve Rosen and Iran specialist Keith Weissman -- have
since been fired. Franklin has been accused of providing AIPAC with a draft presidential
directive that proposed a tougher policy on Iran, which included consideration of covert
action towards regime change.
Yesterday's charge of unlawfully possessing classified federal defense documents focuses
on top secret CIA files found in Franklin's home. He was released yesterday on $50,000
bond and faces a June 9 hearing.
If convicted on yesterday's charge Franklin faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000
fine. The earlier charge carries a similar prison term.
We are joined on the phone right now by Justin Raimondo, editorial director of
http://www.antiwar.com
Justin Raimondo, editorial director of Antiwar. He has an article on Larry Franklin in
the forthcoming issue of The American Conservative. His latest piece on this story on
AntiWar is called "Larry Franklin and the Axis of Espionage" http://www.antiwar.com/justin
.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: We're joined on the phone now by Justin Raimondo. He’s editorial director of
AntiWar, has been writing extensively about this, recently wrote, “The Franklin Affair: A
Spreading Treason.” “There's more to the AIPAC spy scandal than mishandling classified
information,” Justin Raimondo writes. Tell us about this scandal.
JUSTIN RAIMONDO: Well, you have to understand that it didn't really start on June 26,
2003, when the FBI was eavesdropping on a conversation between Franklin, Weissman and
Rosen. It started right after 9/11. That's when the investigation, you know, started. And
the FBI was already watching Weissman and Rosen. And so, Franklin walked in, you know, on
this meeting, and the FBI was stunned. They thought, “What's this guy doing here?” So,
they started watching Franklin. And that's what led to the charges today, and the other
charges, which were issued last week. So, you know, it didn't start with Larry Franklin,
and it's not going to end with Larry Franklin, either.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about the power of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, which just closed this massive conference, considered one of the most powerful
lobbying groups in Washington, one of the top five most influential interest groups in
Fortune magazine's annual poll of Washington insiders, has a $40 million annual budget.
The conference, about 5000 people turned out, among the speakers, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. An AIPAC fact sheet about the
conference said there were more members of Congress in attendance than almost any other
event except for a joint session of Congress or a State of the Union Address.
JUSTIN RAIMONDO: Well, you know, as you said, you know, it has legendary power. And it
doesn't have to register as a foreign agent, even though its top officials are passing
classified information on to Israel. And still, there's been no outcry to have them
register. You know, you left out the Democratic Party, you know, leaders who were there.
Nancy Pelosi gave a speech. All of these people gave speeches and they didn't mention a
single word about this espionage investigation. Now, Mr. Rosen was Mr. AIPAC. That's what
he was known as in Washington. He had been with them for over 20 years, and for him to be
arrested, which is going to happen shortly, is just, you know, phenomenal. I mean, it’s
like, you know, well, you know, there's no comparison, really. You know, like for him to
be arrested like this, you know, and named in this investigation is very incriminating,
and I am appalled that, you know, Condi Rice and all of these, you know, like, leaders of
both parties would actually show up at this conference.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, at the same time, the First Lady, Laura Bush, has been in the
Middle East, and one of the most serious protests she faced, where the protesters came
closer to her than in any other situation, was those as she was going to the Wailing Wall,
calling for Jonathan Pollard to be released. There wasn't a lot of attention to this in
the media, or they didn't identify exactly who the protesters were. I was wondering if
many thought they were Palestinian protesters, but is there a parallel here with what
Jonathan Pollard did?
JUSTIN RAIMONDO: Absolutely. You know, Pollard stole the crown jewels of the U.S.
intelligence community, which was how we encrypt and how we spy on other countries, and so
what he did was that he handed over this stuff to Israel, and Israel handed it over to the
Soviet Union, and the Soviets executed dozens of U.S. agents inside the Soviet Union. But,
you know, it's interesting that the Pollardites would confront Laura in the Holy Land, but
here, you know, like, nobody is confronting the Pollardites. You know, they openly have
this conference, and --
AMY GOODMAN: Does AIPAC lobby for Jonathan Pollard to be released?
JUSTIN RAIMONDO: Oh, yes. I mean, you know, that's an ongoing campaign. Reportedly, Ariel
Sharon has been asking for his release. They're still pressing for that. You know, you do
remember that Clinton almost let him go, and George Tenet threatened to resign along with
a lot of other top government officials if Clinton did it, so Clinton backed down. I
suspect that Bush would get the same reaction from the intelligence community today,
though, you know, perhaps Mr. Sharon is now negotiating for Larry Franklin’s release and
whoever else is going to be arrested.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about exactly what they found, the latest charges, the files in
Larry Franklin’s home?
JUSTIN RAIMONDO: Well, it's very interesting. According to an affidavit by an FBI agent
who investigated the case, some of the documents were listed as a Terrorism Situation
Report from a Terrorism Threat Integration Center. And these were classified as top
secret. Another document was from the CIA, and it talked about al-Qaeda. Another one
talked about Osama bin Laden, and where he is. And then there was the famous policy
memorandum on Iraq, but that seems less important. So, I mean, what was this guy doing? He
had 83 documents in his house, top secret. Half of them were top secret. And so, he had a
library of highly classified information. And the question was, where did he get all of
this stuff, and what was he planning to do with it? And who was checking stuff out of this
library, and for what purpose? So, I mean, Larry Franklin is the dorsal fin of a whale.
And we're just seeing that dorsal fin hit the surface, but there's a lot under the water
that still hasn't surfaced. Some of it will surface in this trial. But I expect other
charges. You know, we have yet to see Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman either charged or
indicted, but that's expected soon. I have an article, by the way, coming out in the
American Conservative, which talks about this.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is the response of the conservative community?
JUSTIN RAIMONDO: Well, you know, it's very interesting because you have got
neoconservatives who, you know, are almost like old-line communists who would always
defend the Soviet Union no matter what, and you know. I mean, to this day, they say, oh,
like, the Rosenbergs were innocent, when in fact they were guilty. So, you know, you have
got this kind of party line "Israel can do no wrong", but then you have got real
conservatives who are saying, “What's going on here? Why is Israel spying on us, and why
are these people apologizing for it?”
AMY GOODMAN: On that note, Justin Raimondo, I want to thank you for being with us. Justin
Raimondo is the editorial director of the website http://www.antiwar.com .
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