The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum

=> Larry Franklin

Posted by Tony (Guest) - Saturday, September 18 2004, 21:47:56 (CEST)
from 24.165.81.4 - cpe-24-165-81-4.socal.rr.com

Commercial -

Windows XP -

Internet Explorer
Website:
Website title:

Larry Franklin

Larry Franklin accused of spying for Israel
On August 27, 2004 CBS News broke a story about an FBI investigation into a possible Israeli spy in the US Department of Defense. The story reported the FBI had uncovered an Israeli spy working as a policy analyst under Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. He was later identified as Larry Franklin, a colonel in the US Air Force Reserve, who had previously served as an attache at the US embassy in Israel and at present is one of two mid-level Pentagon officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense responsible for Iran policy in the office's Northern Gulf directorate. [1] (http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=573326§ion=news)[2] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/politics/campaign/31inquire.html)

Franklin is said to have passed on a classified Presidential Directive, and possibly otherwise sensitive documents pertaining to US deliberations on foreign policy regarding Iran, to a pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who in turn allegedly provided the information to Israel. FBI sources have indicated that the year-long investigation was actively underway when the CBS News story broke. No arrests have been made and Franklin is said to be cooperating with authorities in the investigation. Two unnamed persons in AIPAC are also under investigation. On 27 August, the FBI raided the office of AIPAC director of foreign policy issues Steve Rosen, copying his PC's hard drive. [3] (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1093921795845)

According to the New York Times, Franklin was one of two U.S. officials that held meetings with Iranian dissidents, including arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal. These Pentagon-approved meetings were brokered by neoconservative Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute and said to have taken place in Paris in 2002. According to the Jerusalem Post, the purpose of the meetings was to "undermine a pending deal that the White House had been negotiating with the Iranian government", specifically, an exchange of high-ranking al-Qaeda members in Iranian custody in return for a stop to U.S. support of the anti-Iranian Mujahideen al-Khalq fighters in Iraq.[4] (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1093674510896). The Jerusalem Post article dates the beginning of the FBI investigation to this secret meeting.

The mishandling of intelligence in the Feith office has previously come under criticism by the media and in the Senate intelligence committee's review of the intelligence leading up to the Iraq invasion. Franklin was previously assigned to a unit tasked with the Pentagon's Iraq policy, raising concern that he might have been used to influence the war on Iraq, although Pentagon officials have maintained that he was in no position to influence policy. (see also OSP)

On August 30, Israeli officials admitted that Franklin had met repeatedly with Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and a specialist on Iran's nuclear programs, but point out that this was completely appropriate activity for the two Iran specialists. A Newsweek report indicates that Gileon was under FBI surveillance and that Franklin only became a target after these meetings.[5] (http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=43138)[6] (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5853706/site/newsweek/)

It has been suggested that Franklin's motivations may have been ideological or personal, rather than financial. An unnamed U.S. intelligence official told Newsweek: "for whatever reason, the guy hates Iran [the Iranian government] passionately". Franklin is not Jewish.

Strongly denied by AIPAC and Israel
The spying charges have been strongly denied by Israel as well as AIPAC. The Israeli Embassy in Washington called the charges "completely false and outrageous". AIPAC stated the allegations were "baseless and false". An unidentified Israeli government official commented to Reuters, "It is a strange story. Israel, for many years, has not carried out intelligence activity in the United States."

There have been instances of Israeli espionage in the United States before Franklin. Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy who worked in the Naval Anti-Terrorist Alert Center, pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to life in prison in 1987. The incident had a significant deterimental impact on U.S.-Israeli relations. Israeli officials have stated that the Israeli government terminated all espionage activities in the United States after the Pollard affair, but not necessarily in other Western countries. Israel's credibility with regards to Franklin is tainted by their insistance in the Pollard case that he likewise was not a spy, a position they maintained for 13 years before admitting, in 1998, that Pollard indeed had been a spy for Israel.

Pentagon statement: Franklin did not influence policy
According to a Pentagon statement, "the investigation involves a single individual at D.O.D. at the desk officer level, who was not in a position to have significant influence over U.S. policy." However, it is said that the information would have allowed Israel to apply pressure on the US prior to a final Iran policy statement. An undisclosed CBS News source said Franklin would have been "inside the decision-making loop" on Iran policy. Tensions between Israel and Iran have recently increased in the wake of the regional power vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Israel is deeply distrustful of Iran's nuclear intentions and has warned it may carry out air strikes against Iranian nuclear reactors. Iran has indicated it may hit back in a similar fashion at Israel.

Concern about uncontrolled military technology transfers
Journalist Jim Lobe suggests that the Franklin story is part of a larger investigation into transfer of sensitive military and dual-use technologies to Israel, including powerful case-management software. A concern is that Israeli companies have sold on sensitive U.S.-derived technology to potential U.S. strategic rivals such as Russia and China, and possibly on the black market where it can potentially be obtained by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.[7]

Posited politics: goal was to embarrass Bush or bash Israel
Unnamed Israeli sources have described the scandal as an "internal U.S. political story" to be seen in the context of the U.S. election campaign and part of an attempt to attack Bush. The second Bush adminsitration has been the most pro-Israeli in the history of relations between the two countries. A different administration might return to the more even handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unsurprisngly, the Israeli press worries about the impact on relations with the country's closest ally. The Jerusalem Post points out the "damaging consequences for the American Jewish community and perceptions of the US-Israeli relationship." Yediot Aharonot thinks that "what we have here is an internal American dispute toward the approaching presidential elections" and that some in the U.S. establishment wanted to send "Israel a signal that it is beginning 'to get on their nerves', in the hope that we take the hint." Ha'aretz says that, as reported, the story has "all the ingredients of a conspiracy theory" to be used by "those who seek to bash Israel". [8] (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/29/content_1918461.htm), [9] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3609832.stm). Espionage is, by definition, the act of conspirators.

Some pro-Israeli American commentators also view the story as an internal U.S. affair. Spinning his own conspiracy theory, Frank Gaffney, a former assistant defense secretary under President Reagan, and founder of the Center for Security Policy (whose board membership has included AIPAC officials), has said: "It sounds to me that it is an investigation that was leaked for maximum adverse affect on the office. You have people who are controversial, taking positions that the President [is] closely associated with, that are opposed by other people in the bureaucracy. One of the tricks of bureaucratic warfare is to attack them in the press. It makes them less effective. I think that is going on here."[10] (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/31/2d_probe_at_the_pentagon_examines_actions_on_iraq?pg=2)

External links
Original CBS News story (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/27/eveningnews/main639143.shtml)
Reuters (http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=573095§ion=news)
New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/28spy.html)
BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3607060.stm)
Jerusalem Post: Who is Larry Franklin? (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1093674510896)
xposed (http://www.xposed.com/headline_news/90_ds_905536.aspx)
Wider FBI Probe Of Pentagon Leaks Includes Chalabi (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57595-2004Sep2.html) (Washington Post)
Israeli 'mole' investigation grows (http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0831/dailyUpdate.html) (Christian Science Monitor summary)

---------------------

- BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

The full topic:
No replies.

Content-length: 10329
Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
---------------: ----- -------
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/vnd.ms-excel, applicatio...
Accept-language: en-us
Cache-control: no-cache
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: *hidded*
Host: www.insideassyria.com
Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf2/rkvsf_core.php?.z4lc.
User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)