US sources say the spy put the Israelis “inside the decision-making loop”

WASHINGTON, August 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has hard evidence that a “trusted analyst of the Pentagon” has been spying for Israel, senior US officials said Saturday, August 28.

In statements to CNN, one official described the evidence against the suspect as a “slam dunk case”.

Multiple sources have told CNN that the investigation is well along, and one government official said the “mole” working for Israel could have been in a position to influence Bush administration policy toward Iran and Iraq.

CBS News, which first reported the story, said the FBI’s hard evidence was obtained through wiretaps, undercover surveillance and clandestine photography.

“The FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to... roll up someone [who] agents believe has been spying, not for an enemy, but for Israel, from within the office of the secretary of defense,” it said.

The American network said the spy has ties to two senior Pentagon officials: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.

Spy Named

The FBI investigation is focusing also on at least two employees at AIPAC

The Washington Post, meanwhile, quoted Saturday two sources who identified the Pentagon spy as Larry Franklin, a desk officer in the Defense Department's Near East and South Asia Bureau.

The sources said Franklin worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency before moving to the Pentagon's policy branch three years ago and is nearing retirement.

Franklin could not be located for comment Friday night, the Post said.

The investigation has been underway for some months. Defense Secretary Donald  Rumsfeld and top Pentagon lawyers were informed of it some time ago, officials said.

The Pentagon issued a statement Friday confirming it “has been cooperating with the Department of Justice on this matter for an extended period of time”.

A federal law enforcement agent said Saturday that arrests in the Federal Bureau of Intelligence investigation into the alleged spying could come as soon as next week.

Franklin works under William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary of defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs.

Luti oversaw the Pentagon's “Office of Special Plans,” which conducted some early policy work for the 2003 invasion of Iraq .

That office is one of two Pentagon offices that Bush administration critics have claimed were set up by Defense Department hawks to bypass the CIA and other intelligence agencies, providing information that President Bush and others used to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

The other office was run by a Luti superior, Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, and was known as the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group.

Feith reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who in turn reports to Rumsfeld.

AIPAC Implicated

The Post also quoted a law enforcement official as saying that the information allegedly passed by Franklin went to Israel through the pro-Israel lobby group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The FBI investigation is focusing also on at least two employees at AIPAC, the law enforcement official said.

CBS quoted sources as saying the spy turned over last year a presidential directive on US policy toward Iran while it was “in the draft phase when US 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”.

AIPAC vigorously denied any wrongdoing and said it is fully cooperating with the investigation.

“Any allegation of criminal conduct by the organization or its employees is baseless and false,” spokesman Josh Block said in a written statement.

Israeli officials also denied Saturday any links with the Pentagon analyst.

One official was quoted by Israeli public radio as saying that Israel had not conducted intelligence gathering activities on US soil for years.

“This case is very bizarre and we don't know what it's about,” one official said.

Israel pledged not to spy on the United States after the case of Jonathan Pollard, an intelligence analyst for the US Navy, who passed on thousands of secret documents in 18 months before his arrest in November 1985.

Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987.