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By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

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BY WAY OF DECEPTION 121the system became so overloaded that everyone else's computersstopped. There was so much data for the computer to find that itcould do nothing else. Arik effectively shut down the Mossadcomputer for eight hours; at the time the system had no way tostop or override commands.Since then, the system has been changed so that a limit <strong>of</strong> 300listings is placed on any single request, and requests must bemore specific. Rather than just asking for all <strong>of</strong> Arafat's contactlistings, for example, you'd have to ask just for his Syriancontacts.* * *After the computer course and what was left <strong>of</strong> my vacation —three days — my first assignment was research, at the SaudiArabian desk, under a woman named Aerna, which was near theJordanian desk headed by Ganit. Neither was regarded as animportant desk. The Mossad then had a single source in SaudiArabia, a man in the Japanese embassy. Everything else for theregion came from newspapers, magazines and other media, plusextensive communications interference orchestrated by Unit 8200.Aerna was busy putting together a book on the family tree <strong>of</strong> theSaudi Arabian royal family. She was also gathering information ona proposed second oil pipeline across the country which the Iraqiswanted to patch into when it was built, so that they could pumpout their oil and sell it to pay for their war effort against Iran.Because <strong>of</strong> the war, it was extremely difficult to transport the oilsafely by ship through the Persian Gulf. We saw interestingreports about Saudi Arabia from British Intelligence. They wroteextremely good reports, which were really political analyses <strong>of</strong> asituation, never real intelligence. The British were very bad as faras sharing intelligence went. One <strong>of</strong> their reports said that theSaudis felt the oil situation was going to get better; therefore theyshould build this second pipeline. But the Brits were saying therewas going to be a glut, and the Saudi economy would suffer oncethey ran out <strong>of</strong> cash to support their extensive free hospitalizationand education systems.We took the Brits seriously, but everyone in the building

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