Questioninggeller
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FBI Investigates Potential Israeli Spy
Friday, August 27, 2004
WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating whether an aide to the Pentagon's No. 3 official acted as a spy for Israel, giving the Jewish state classified materials about secret White House deliberations on Iran, two federal law enforcement officials said Friday.
No arrests have been made, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.
The officials refused to identify the Pentagon employee who is under investigation, but said the person works in the office of Douglas J. Feith (search), the undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon.
Feith is a key aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld (search), working on sensitive policy issues, including U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran.
The investigation centers on whether the employee in Feith's office passed secrets about Bush administration policy toward Iran to the main pro-Israeli lobbying group in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (search), which then allegedly gave them to the Israeli government, one official said.
David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said: "We categorically deny these allegations. They are completely false and outrageous."
TillEulenspiegel said:That came from fair and balanced Fox?
CBS) CBS News has learned that the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to -- in FBI terminology -- "roll up" someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.
60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports the FBI believes it has "solid" evidence that the suspected mole supplied Israel with classified materials that include secret White House policy deliberations on Iran.
At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.
CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy."
This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome."
The case raises another concern among investigators: Did Israel also use the analyst to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq?
With ties to top Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the analyst was assigned to a unit within the Defense Department tasked with helping develop the Pentagon's Iraq policy.