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Under certain circumstances, any of the above
embassy officials could have had reason to speak
with someone working, as Franklin most recently did,
for DougJas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for
policy.
Feith was one of the leading administration advocates
of a tough line on Iran, the war in Iraq and strong
support for Israel. Others include Undersecretary of
State John Bolton, Vice President Richard Cheney"
Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. This group is
opposed on all three issues by the CIA, Secretary of
State Colin'Powell and other State Department
officials.
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Thus Israel has been caught in the crossfire of a
policy war within the U.S. administration - one unlikely
to end even if Bush is reelected in November.
Wolfowitz, whom Bush likes, would probably have
trouble getting Senate confirmation for a promotion;
Feith was considered a leading candidate for ouster
even before the Franklin affair; Bolton's status has
been undermined; and the entire group viewed Bush's
nomination of Porter Goss for CIA director as a blow,
as Goss has close ties with the agency and its
outgoing head, George Tenet, the group's long-time
rival.
Another agency whose battle for survival is liable to
hurt Israel, albeit unintentionally, is the FBI, whose
signal failure to prevent the September 11, 2001
attacks led both to the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security and to calls for removing
counterterrorism from the FBI's aegis and transferring
it to a new agency, similar to Britain's M15. The FBI is
thus determined to prove to be outstanding at the top
two items on its new agenda: preventing terrorism and
preventing espionage.
The man who is heading the FBI's investigation
against Franklin, Dave Szady, has repeatedly said
that he views no person, agency or country as above
suspicion. In his view, Israel, along with Taiwan,
France, Japan, India and others, is on the list of
friendly countries that "nevertheless try to steal our
secrets. n He once stated in an interview that only the
prevention of mass-casualty terror attacks is more
important than counterespionage. He added that
today, it is not only America's enemies, but also its
allies that try to steal its secrets - and while
embassies and consulates remain the bases for such
activity, he continued, foreign governments today also
employ stUdents" scientists and nfront n companies.
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8/30/2004