accounts differ as to what was talked about. The perceived importance of the information provided by Ledeen's Iranian informants also varies, depending upon who tells the story. We've already heard Ledeen describe the Rome conference as resulting in actionable intelligence that saved American lives in Afghanistan. Not so, according to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who later described the meetings as essentially without intelligence value. He stated, "There wasn't anything there of substance or of value that needed to be pursued further." See, Josh Miccah Marshall and Laura Rozen, "Iran Contra II?" Washington Journal, September, 2004.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html During his interview with Larissa, Ledeen's recollection of the topic of the December 2001 Rome meeting, and who authorized it, also differs from the accounts of others. He recalls that the meetings were cleared by multiple agencies, including the CIA. Ledeen also claims to have briefed the US Ambassador both before and after the meetings. That isn't at all what happened, according to Josh Marshall's sources for his Washington Monthly article. That article records that there was an additional meeting between OSP and Iranians arranged by Ledeed in June 2002, and that Manoucher Ghorbanifar set up a third a year later. According to Marshall:
The first meeting occurred in Rome in December, 2001. It included Franklin, Rhode, and another American, the neoconservative writer and operative Michael Ledeen, who organized the meeting. (According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Feith as a consultant.) Also in attendance was Ghorbanifar and a number of other Iranians. One of the Iranians, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, was a former senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who claimed to have information about dissident ranks within the Iranian security services. The Washington Monthly has also learned from U.S. government sources that Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, attended the meetings, as did the Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino, who is well-known in neoconservative circles in Washington.
Alarm bells about the December 2001 meeting began going off in U.S. government channels only days after it occurred. On Dec. 12, 2001, at the U.S. embassy in Rome, America's newly-installed ambassador, Mel Sembler, sat down for a private dinner with Ledeen, an old friend of his from Republican Party politics, and Martino, the Italian defense minister. The conversation quickly turned to the meeting. The problem was that this was the first that Amb. Sembler had heard about it
According to U.S. government sources, Sembler immediately set about trying to determine what he could about the meeting and how it had happened. Since U.S. government contact with foreign government intelligence agencies is supposed to be overseen by the CIA, Sembler first spoke to the CIA station chief in Rome to find out what if anything he knew about the meeting with the Iranians. But that only raised more questions because the station chief had been left in the dark as well. Soon both Sembler and the Rome station chief were sending anxious queries back to the State Department and CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., respectively, raising alarms on both sides of the Potomac. OVERLAPPING SPY CASESOne of the most intriguing aspects of Ledeen's account is that he says the Iranian exile figures talked about plots by Iran to attack US troops. That is the very same subject of one of the classified DoD documents that Larry Franklin unlawfully shared with AIPAC employees in the OSP-AIPAC spy case in the same month that Harold Rhode met several Iranians in Paris. Marshall describes Ghorbanifar's description of that June 2003 meeting:
Ghorbanifar says the purpose of the meeting was for Rhode to get more information on the situation in Iraq and the Middle East. "In those meetings we met, we gave him the scenario, what would happen in the coming days in Iraq. And everything has happened word for word as we told him," Ghorbanifar repeats. "We met in several different places in Paris," he says. "Rhode met several other people -- he didn't only meet me." That raises an interesting question. Was Franklin sharing the same information with the Israelis that he and Rhode were getting from Ledeen and Ghorbanifar's sources? According to the Franklin indictment:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2005/franklin_indictment_04aug2005.htmOVERT ACTS, #35. On or about June 26, 2003, during the aforementioned meeting, FRANKLIN disclosed to ROSEN and WEISSMAN classified information related to potential attacks upon United States forces in Iraq. FRANKLIN told ROSEN and WEISSMAN that the information was "highly classified" and asked them not to use it. Finally, why would the Israelis be interested in what Ledeen and Ghorbanifar's Iranian clients might be telling the DoD about Iranian intentions in Afghanistan and Iraq? This makes sense if Ledeen was stovepiping information provided by Israel to receptive officers within Defense Department. If that were the case, Israeli intelligence would have a strong interest in seeing the end product that made its way into the record at the Pentagon.
This explanation is buttressed by the fact that the Larry Frankin Indictment shows that Franklin was himself at this same time involved with similar stovepiping of information about Itan's alledged nuclear program sourced from Israeli intelligence, in this case, FO-3, who was Mossad Chief of Station, Naor Gilon, at the Washington Embassy. Overt Acts, Page 23-24, para 6 of the Indictment states:
#6. On or about May 23, 2003, FRANKLIN again met FO-3 at the POAC. At this meeting, the two discussed issues concerning a Middle Eastern country and its nuclear program and the views held by Europe and certain United States government agencies with regard to that issue. Following this meeting, the defendant drafted an Action Memo to his supervisors, incorporating suggestions made by FO-3 during the meeting. In conclusion, we offer this question: is it so hard to imagine that Ledeen and Ghorbanifar might also have also been involved in stovepiping the Niger Yellowcake forgeries to Franklin and Rhode? Not so hard to imagine, given the larger context of the operation.
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