by W. Patrick Lang
"..Pollack, who was a staffer on President Clinton’s National Security Council, said he didn’t give the AIPAC staffers any classified information. Pollack also said the information that Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former director of foreign policy issues, is accused of passing on to a reporter could not have come from him. “I believe I am USGO-1,” Pollack told JTA on Monday, using a term in the indictment for U.S. Government Official No. 1. A second source, speaking on condition of anonymity, has verified the information. Neither Pollack nor the other unnamed government official — identified by sources as David Satterfield, a former deputy assistant secretary of state — has been charged with a crime. That has raised questions about the government’s case against Rosen, former AIPAC Iran analyst Keith Weissman and Larry Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst accused of passing classified information to the AIPAC staffers." (JTA)
COMMENTARY BELOW:
 Intelligence: The Human Factor (Securing Our Nation) By Patrick Lang Editor: Larry C. Johnson |
A Federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia has indicted two former foreign policy analysts (Rosen and Weissman) at AIPAC (THE Lobby for Israel in Washington) and a fairly senior civilian staffer in the office of the Secretary of Defense (Franklin) for playing fast and loose with US government secret information. Among other things they are accused of passing it to a foreign country’s diplomats (Israel, of course). Franklin, the staffer is accused of illegally disclosing the information to Rosen and Weissman.
Satterfield (USGO-2 in the indictment) is now the Deputy Chief of Mission at the embassy in Baghdad. In other words, he is Khalilzad’s deputy. Savor that for a moment. He is cited in the indictment for these three men as having given them US government secrets without authorization.
Pollack (USGO-1) is the author before the war of a famous book which strongly made the case for war with Iraq. the arguments cited by him in his book are largely "exploded" now by exposure to "sunlight" in country wide investigations of Iraq. He has forthrightly said on TV that much of his argument was nonsense. He now works for the Saban Center at the Brookings Institute. Saban is funded with money from Middle Eastern sources. The director of Saban is Martin Indyk whose meteoric rise to power and ability to land on his feet after "setbacks" are legend in Washington. His career in Australian, and US Government includes service in the Australian equivalent of the National Security Council, followed by service at the US State Department, NSC, AIPAC, WINEP, as US Ambassador to Israel and now Director of the Saban Center. Quite a career!
So, why weren’t Satterfield and Pollack indicted as well as the other three? My conclusion, after talking to a number of people, is that they cooperated early and fully with the FBI in "nailing" the others, and were "immunized."
Nevertheless…..
Who is kidding who here?
Pat Lang
Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV (PDF)