Agents of Influence

[bemildred]

Get some popcorn ...
:popcorn:

Did Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, run a covert program with operatives in high-level US government positions to influence the Bush Administration's decision to go to war in Iraq? The FBI wants to know.

That's the story behind the latest Washington spy scandal, involving Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and a mid-level civilian Pentagon employee allegedly caught red-handed trying to deliver US secrets to the Israelis.

It's not a routine spy case. According to sources familiar with the investigation, the FBI is looking at a group of neoconservatives who have occupied senior posts at the White House, the Pentagon and in Vice President Cheney's office. It's not that they are supporters of Israel--no crime there--but that some of them might be conspirators in a clandestine operation launched by Sharon's Likud Party. They make up the very network of ideologues--from civilians at the Defense Department to fellow travelers at right-wing think tanks--who have been accused of pushing George W. Bush into war. The point of the probe, sources believe, is not to examine the push to war but rather to ascertain whether Sharon recruited or helped place in office people who knowingly, and secretly, worked with him to affect the direction of US policy in the Middle East. The most likely targets of the inquiry are Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Harold Rhode of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment.

It's an explosive inquiry and one that raises the most sensitive hackles, since it involves the possibility that US officials (most, but not all, Jews) are working on Sharon's behalf. They include Feith and a handful of other officials, including those in the inner circle of his policy office who formed the core of the Office of Special Plans (OSP). The probe faces stiff political resistance. Yet it may have legs.

The Nation

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. 2004.

Haven't heard a bit about it. It's been blackholed.

[bemildred]

2. Sounds like Conyers wants to drag it back out into the light.

Should be quite a donnybrook. It will make the Jimmy Carter dispute look like a church picnic.

[Tom Joad]

3. You think Conyers will be anything near that brave? He dutifully attacked

Carter. aipac appreciated that, no doubt.

[oberliner]

5. Dutifully attacked Carter?

It is possible, isn't it, that Conyers actually was, in fact, geniunely offended by Carter's choice of a title? That his comments were made of his own volition?

I have enough respect for John Conyers to assume that if he makes a statement it is because he actually believes it.

[Tom Joad]

4. Let's hope the aipac trial answers more of these questions.

[newyorican]

6. This is not the first time this issue has been raised...

..it would be interesting to dig some of the archived threads on it.

[oberliner]

7. This article is from September 16, 2004 nt

[Lithos]

8. Locking per I/P guidelines

Based on a 2+ year old article.

Lithos
DU Moderator