[Mb-civic] Pentagon Official Suspected of Giving U.S. Secrets to Israel

[Barbara Siomos]

  FBI Probe Targets Pentagon Official 
    By Bradley Graham and Thomas E. Ricks
    Washington Post 
    Saturday 28 August 2004
 
    The FBI is investigating a mid-level Pentagon official who
specializes in Iranian affairs for allegedly passing classified
information to Israel, and arrests in the case could come as early as
next week, officials at the Pentagon and other government agencies said
last night.
 
    The name of the person under investigation was not
officially released, but two sources identified him as Larry Franklin.
He was described as a desk officer in the Pentagon's Near East and South
Asia Bureau, one of six regional policy sections. Franklin worked at the
Defense Intelligence Agency before moving to the Pentagon's policy
branch three years ago and is nearing retirement, the officials said.
Franklin could not be located for comment last night.
 
    One government official familiar with the investigation said
it is not yet clear whether the case will rise to the level of espionage
or end up involving lesser charges such as improper disclosure or
mishandling of classified information.
 
    The investigation has been underway for some months. Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and top Pentagon lawyers were informed of
it some time ago, officials said. But many other senior Pentagon
officials expressed surprise at the news when it was first reported last
night on CBS. 

    Several Pentagon officials sought to play down Franklin's
role in policymaking, saying that he was not in a position to have
significant influence over U.S. policy.
 
    "The Defense Department has been cooperating with the
Department of Justice for an extended period of time," the Pentagon said
in a statement last night. "It is the DOD's understanding that the
investigation within DOD is very limited in its scope." Even so, the
case is likely to attract intense attention because the official being
investigated works under William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary of
defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs. Luti oversaw the
Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans," which conducted some early policy
work for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. 

    That office is one of two Pentagon offices that Bush
administration critics have claimed were set up by Defense Department
hawks to bypass the CIA and other intelligence agencies, providing
information that President Bush and others used to exaggerate the Iraqi
threat.
 
    The other office was run by a Luti superior, Douglas J.
Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, and was known as the Policy
Counterterrorism Evaluation Group. Feith reports to Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who in turn reports to Rumsfeld.
 
    Neither the House nor Senate intelligence committees,
however, found support for allegations that the analysts in the offices
collected their own intelligence, or that their information
significantly shaped the case the administration made for going to war.
A law enforcement official said that the information allegedly passed by
Franklin went to Israel through the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying organization. The information was said
to have been the draft of a presidential directive related to U.S.
policies toward Iran. 

    In addition to Franklin, the FBI investigation is focusing
on at least two employees at AIPAC, the law enforcement official said. 

    Last night, AIPAC vigorously denied any wrongdoing and said
it is fully cooperating with the investigation. 
    "Any allegation of criminal conduct by the organization or
its employees is baseless and false," spokesman Josh Block said in a
written statement. "We would not condone or tolerate for a second any
violation of U.S. law or interests." He said he had been traveling and
so had no additional information on the situation.
 
    Another AIPAC official said: "Our folks are pretty outraged
about this. We've had these kinds of accusations before, and none of
them has ever proven to be true." 

    David Siegel, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, said: "We
categorically deny these allegations. They are completely false and
outrageous." 

    Israel is a close ally of the United States, but espionage
investigations here involving its government are not unprecedented. In
1987, a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, Jonathan J. Pollard, admitted to
selling state secrets to Israel and was sentenced to life in prison.
 
    Franklin's name surfaced in news reports last year that
disclosed he and another Pentagon specialist on the Persian Gulf region
had met secretly with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a discredited expatriate
Iranian arms merchant who figured prominently in the Iran-contra scandal
of the mid-1980s.
 
    That meeting, according to Pentagon officials, took place in
late 2001. It had been formally sanctioned by the U.S. government in
response to an Iranian government offer to provide information relevant
to the war on terrorism. Franklin and the other Pentagon official,
Harold Rhode, met with the Iranians over three days in Italy.
Ghorbanifar attended these meetings. Rumsfeld has said that the
information received at the meetings led nowhere.