Who side are you on?

Kim Philby

Douglas Feith

Do they have something in common?

FBI espionage probe goes beyond Israeli allegations, sources say

By Warren P. Strobel

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday.

The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who have first-hand knowledge of the subject.

In addition, one said, FBI investigators in recent weeks have conducted interviews to determine whether Pentagon officials gave highly classified U.S. intelligence to a leading Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, which may in turn have passed it on to Iran. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi has denied his group was involved in any wrongdoing.

The linkage, if any, between the two leak investigations, remains unclear.

But they both center on the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official.

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Feith has long been close to Israel. In 2000, he helped author a paper, "A Clean Break," that advised incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adopt a much tougher approach to the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors.

A former Feith employee, Karen Kwiatkowski, has described how senior Israeli military officers were sometimes escorted to his Pentagon office without signing in as security regulations required.

The thing about Philby, besides his treason, was the fact that he played the old boy network from Cambridge like a fiddle. He was "one of us" so the idea that he could be a traitor never occured to anyone until the bodies piled up.

Douglas Feith may well have at least one traitor in his office, and maybe more. And given Chalabi's bragging about his contacts, those traitors may include Feith himself.

Kos goes into the intelligence disaster of the Bush Administration, but he left out the worst one, and the one that can be laid directly at Feith's feet. The lack of actionable, reliable intelligence in Iraq. Feith has been an utter failure with his GOPCPA and his utter lack of understanding the nature of the Iraqi resistance.

Besides being one of the most hated men in the Pentagon, he was clearly out of his depth in dealing with a live, ongoing Iraqi insurgency. So what does he do? Push Chalabi as the solution to Iraq's problem. This feathermerchant con-man doesn't even have the thug credentials of his cousin, Allawi.

In a normal administration, Feith would have been fired for his rank incompetence. Not with Bush.

Everyone was wondering what the CIA had to use against Bush? Well, someone tripped over some document which led back to not only Israel, but AIPAC as well. Which could be a fatal blow to them as well, to the resulting joy of CIA and State Department Arabists and not a few experts on Israel.

What this means is that US policy towards Iran is in a shambles at a time when they have a serious interest in seeing us fail in Iraq. The Israelis and Iranians, through proxies, have been battling to set US policy towards Iran.

If Feith was competent, he would have realized something was going on, but he's not and he didn't. But the length of the investigation indicates more than just some random curiousity about Feith. While he managed to allay fears that he was under Mossad control, someone was watching his office like a hawk, waiting for something to go wrong. And when it did, they pounced. The Agency has suspected Feith of being 'friendly" to Israel, if not under Israeli control since the 1980's.

How did he get his job? The same way Kim Philby did, the old boys network. The neocons protected him and since they didn't trust the Agency anyway, any warning would have fallen on deaf ears. So he was allowed to gain a position of trust at least one person in his office betrayed, because he said the right things and had the right friends.

Meanwhile, the US is locked in a nasty colonial war with no chance of victory. It was Doug Feith's job to prevent that, not protect his Israeli friends.

posted by Steve @ 2:32:00 AM