@@ The guy hates Iran passionately @@
Arash
August 29, 2004
And Now a Mole?
In the Pentagon, a suspected spy allegedly passes secrets about Iran to
Israel
By Michael Isikoff And Mark Hosenball
With Michael Hirsh and Daniel Klaidman in Washington and Dan Ephron in
Jerusalem
It was just a Washington lunch-one that the FBI happened to be monitoring.
Nearly a year and a half ago, agents were monitoring a conversation between
an Israeli Embassy official and a lobbyist for American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, as part of a probe into possible Israeli
spying. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, in the description of one
intelligence official, another American "walked in" to the lunch out of the
blue. Agents at first didn't know who the man was. They were stunned to
discover he was Larry Franklin, a desk officer with the Near East and South
Asia office at the Pentagon.
Franklin soon became a subject of the FBI investigation as well. Now he may
face charges, accused of divulging to Israel classified information on U.S.
government plans regarding Iran, officials say. While some U.S. officials
warned against exaggerated accusations of spying, one administration source
described the case as the most significant Israeli espionage investigation
in Washington since Jonathan Pollard, an American who was imprisoned for
life in 1987 for passing U.S. Navy secrets to the Israelis. The FBI and
Justice Department are still reviewing the evidence, but one intelligence
source believes Franklin may be arrested shortly.
The probe itself amounts to another embarrassing problem for Donald
Rumsfeld, the beleaguered Defense secretary. It comes during a week in which
violence flared up again in Iraq and a Pentagon investigation indirectly
blamed Rumsfeld for poor oversight in the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal.
In a statement, the Defense Department said it "has been cooperating with
the Department of Justice on this matter for an extended period of time."
At first blush, officials close to the investigation say, Franklin seemed an
unlikely suspect: he was described as a midlevel policy "wonk" with a
doctorate who had toiled for some time on Mideast affairs. Yet he had
previously worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and there was at least
one other aspect to his background that caught the FBI's attention: although
Franklin was not Jewish, he was an Army reservist who did his reserve duty
at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
FBI counterintelligence agents began tracking him, and at one point watched
him allegedly attempt to pass a classified U.S. policy document on Iran to
one of the surveillance targets, according to a U.S. intelligence official.
But his alleged confederate was "too smart," the official said, and refused
to take it. Instead, he asked Franklin to brief him on its contents-and
Franklin allegedly obliged. Franklin also passed information gleaned from
more highly classified documents, the official said. If the government is
correct, Franklin's motive appears to have been ideological rather than
financial. There is no evidence that money changed hands. "For whatever
reason, the guy hates Iran passionately," the official said, referring to
the Iranian government.
NEWSWEEK's efforts to reach Franklin or a lawyer representing him were
unsuccessful. But a close friend, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise
Institute, said he believes the charges against Franklin are "nonsensical."
Officials say that Franklin began cooperating about a month ago, after he
was confronted by the FBI. At the time, these officials say, Franklin
acknowledged meetings with the Israeli contact. Law-enforcement officials
say they have no evidence that anyone above Franklin at the Pentagon had any
knowledge of his activities.
Israeli officials, meanwhile, bristled at the suggestion of espionage.
Ephraim Sneh, a member of Parliament and a retired general who has been
monitoring the development of nukes in Iran for years, said that Israel
would be crazy to spy on its best friend. "Since Pollard, we avoid any
intelligence activity on U.S. soil," Sneh said in an interview. "I know the
policy; I've been in this business for years. We avoid anything that even
smells like intelligence-gathering in the U.S." Another Israeli official
contended that the Israelis had no cause to steal secrets because anything
important on Iran is already exchanged between the CIA and the Mossad,
Israel's spy agency. In a statement, AIPAC denied that any of its employees
received information "they believed was secret or classified," and said it
was cooperating.
U.S. investigators would not reveal what kind of information Franklin was
allegedly trying to divulge to Israel. But for months the administration has
been debating what to do about Iran's clerical regime as well as its alleged
program to build nuclear weapons-a subject of keen interest to the Israelis,
who have quietly warned Washington that they will not permit Tehran to gain
nuclear capability.
Franklin was known to be one of a tightly knit group of pro-Israel hawks in
the Pentagon associated with his immediate superior, William Luti, the
hard-charging and impassioned protegé of former House speaker Newt Gingrich.
As deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Near East affairs, Luti was a
key player in planning the Iraq war. He, in turn, works in the office of
Under Secretary Douglas Feith, a career lawyer who, before he became the
Pentagon's No. 3, was a sometime consultant for Likud, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's political party. Officials say they have no evidence
that either Feith or Luti had any knowledge of Franklin's discussions with
the Israelis.
Franklin has also been among the subjects of a separate probe being
conducted by the Senate intelligence committee. Part of that investigation
concerns alleged "rogue" intelligence activities by Feith's staff. Among
these activities was a series of meetings that Franklin and one of his
colleagues, Harold Rhode, had in Paris in late 2001 with Manucher
Ghorbanifar, the shadowy Iranian arms dealer made infamous during the
Iran-contra scandal of the 1980s. One purpose of those meetings was to
explore a scheme for overthrowing the mullahs in Iran, though Rumsfeld later
said the plan was never seriously considered.
But so far, there is no evidence that the Ghorbanifar contacts are related
to the espionage probe. And officials familiar with the case suggest that
the political damage to Bush and the Pentagon may prove to be more serious
than the damage to national security.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5853706/site/newsweek/