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POINTING THE FINGER AT DOUGLAS FEITH
Douglas Feith, #3 Official in the Department of
Defense, with newly accused Israeli spy Larry Franklin,
a man now said to be a friend and policy
analyst Feith brought to the Pentagon.
MER - Mid-East Realities - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 29 August:
Long-time Washington operatives all, with long-time connections to the Israeli-Jewish lobby and directly to the Israeli government and intelligence services, there are quite a few senior Jewish neocons who helped orchestrate the invasion and occupation of Iraq. We have named many names in the past including Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Carl Gershman, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and quite a few others who have been in and around power in Washington since the Reagan years. Of the list of the 50 top Washington neocons published earlier this yearly, nearly half in fact are Jewish and nearly all have connections in one way or another to various branches of the Israeli-Jewish lobby.
In recent years however none of the Israeli-centric Jewish neocons has had more power and influence over U.S. policy and the take-over of Iraq than Douglas Feith.
The American media has never been willing to focus as it should have all along on the extraordinarily close ties between some of the most senior Bush Administration officials and operatives and the Israelis.
Feith for instance was a featured public speaker at hard-line Zionist events before the Bush Administration took power. There's been no media investigation of his more private activities. His top former law partner in fact moved to Israel when Feith moved to the Pentagon. There he quickly became the lawyer for the extreme right-wing Israeli settler movement and has been personally active in land deals dispossessing the Palestinians for still more Israeli land-grabs and settlements. Even more suspiciously, Marc Zell now has extensive multi-million-dollar business interests involving Israel and Iraq that have directly benefited from his connections with Feith, Chalabi, and others.
Indeed, it was Feith more than anyone else in the U.S. government who pushed the faulty deceptive 'intelligence' of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress on the media and on official Washington. That scandal in itself, as well as all the deceptions and lies used to bring about the Iraqi invasion, should have forced Feith out long ago -- in addition to the prison torture scandals which also have both Feith's and Israel's fingerprints.
It was Feith and his neocon comrades who when the CIA wasn't sufficiently on board set up counter-intelligence operations in the Pentagon that pushed relentlessly for the Iraqi war and foisted reems of bad, misleading and false intelligence on everyone at that crucial time.
And Feith has been the senior day-to-day Pentagon official in effect running Iraq by remote control since the invasion, constantly on the phone to Iraq essentially giving orders and filtering all the information that comes back to the Pentagon on its way to his boss, Paul Wolfowitz, and his boss Donald Rumsfeld.
The corporate big media is constrained from calling it like it is: Mr. Feith is a dually loyal American Jew long closely associated with the Israeli Likud Party, Ariel Sharon, and the settlers movement and with numerous intertwining connections to the Israeli-Jewish lobby in Washington which has in fact pushed his fortunes as their own. He was one of the most active advocates for blowing up the 'Oslo Peace Process' and for arming Israel with the latest advanced American weapons systems. And he is thought to be one of the strongest advocates for doing what Ariel Sharon has publicly called for -- attacking Iran after taking care of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Feith has been mentioned in most of the major media stories this weekend in Washington -- but not nearly with the emphasis he should have been. For Feith has played a central role in just about every scandal that has beset the Bush Administration -- from the faulty 'intelligence', to the mistaken 'assumptions', to the prison torture scandals, and now the latest Israeli/Jewish lobby spy scandal right in his own office.
Pentagon aide draws scrutiny from FBI
The probe is focusing on whether the senior official, who has not been identified by name, disclosed classified information related to White House policy toward Iran.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the suspected mole works in the office of Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy who is considered one of the top three officials in the Pentagon.
One U.S. official said the FBI had unconfirmed information that Mr. Feith supplied information to Israel in the 1980s. However, the officials declined to provide further information citing the ongoing investigation. It could not be learned whether arrests are expected in the case.
But a third official, also speaking anonymously, said an arrest could come as early as next week.
If the charges of a Pentagon mole are confirmed, the case would be the first Israeli intelligence-gathering effort against the United States exposed since the spy case involving Navy analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard, who pleaded guilty to passing highly classified information to the Jewish state in 1985.
Officials confirmed details of the probe after it was first reported by CBS News, Associated Press and Reuters news agency.
The reports quoted U.S. law enforcement officials as saying the suspected mole within the Pentagon supplied documents and information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential, pro-Israeli lobbying group in Washington.
Two persons within AIPAC are said to have been the recipients of the information, which was passed on to Israel's government.
Israel is focused intently on Iran because the Islamic government in Tehran has declared Israel an avowed enemy.
A senior Iranian defense official recently said that Iran had weapons that could knock out Israel's nuclear complex at Dimona.
Bush administration officials have said tensions are rising between Israel and Iran and there are concerns that Israel may conduct a military strike on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor, which is being built with Russian assistance, but which has not been supplied with nuclear fuel.
One official said the suspected Pentagon spy supplied Israel with a draft presidential directive relating to U.S. policy toward Iran.
Critics of Mr. Feith have said that he and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz are pro-Israel "neoconservatives" who sway U.S. policy, including policy on Iraq, favoring Israel.
Supporters of Mr. Feith and Mr. Wolfowitz have dismissed the criticism as anti-Semitic.
Officials said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has been notified about the investigation.
An AIPAC official told CBS News that the organization cooperating with the government in the investigation and has hired lawyers. AIPAC denied any wrongdoing by the organization or any of its employees.
At the Israeli Embassy, a spokesman said: "We categorically deny these allegations. They are completely false and outrageous."
The Pollard case was considered a major counterintelligence breakthrough for the FBI in 1985, which had been seeing indications of Israeli intelligence gathering for years but had been limited from taking action.
The Israeli intelligence services have worked closely with the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies for decades and have provided valuable information on international terrorism. However, the Pollard case led to temporary disruption in U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing.
•This article is based in part on wire service reports.
