Last Friday's news dump had a real whopper. Condi Rice was accused of leaking classified information to indicted AIPAC lobbyist, Steven Rosen. See,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
This raises the question: was Condi cooking the books on Iran WMDs or was she helping to plant false evidence of Iraq WMDs? If the report is true, my money is on the former, and that implicates her in a plot with the Israelis to draw the U.S. into attacking Iran. If it was instead the latter case, she's guilty of merely working with Israeli agents to plant false evidence of Iraq WMDs. All in a day's work.
Either way, this may impact her chances for that NFL Commissioner's job.
The accusation against Condi gives us a chance to take a closer look at the Franklin OSP-AIPAC spy case, which has been largely overshadowed by Plamegate. According to the Franklin indictment, the bulk of the information that Lawrence Franklin was sharing with foreign intelligence officers (FO-1 through 3) at the Israeli Embassy, and their AIPAC cutouts, was about IRAN NOT IRAQ. Read the Lawrence Franklin indictment:
http://files.findlaw.com/...
Please bear in mind that Col. Franklin was the DIA Iran desk officer when he was tasked to Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans (OSP). While Franklin was indeed involved with the goings-on at OSP surrounding the Niger Yellowcake documents, his primary duties concerned Iran WMDs. That's the same focus as Valerie Plame.
Similarly, the focus of Dr. Steven Rosen, an employee at AIPAC, was also Iran not Iraq.
It only stands to reason, then, that the classified information Condi is alledged to have shared with Rosen (which we can presume made its way to Mossad) was likely also about Iran.
As Rosen's lawyer, Abbe Lowell said. "On day one, Secretary of State Rice tells him certain info and on day two one of the conspirators tells him the same thing or something less volatile." http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Seems to me, therefore, that Condi was involved in the same effort to spread the war in Iraq into Iran as was Franklin. Given that Fitz has indicated that she is a subject of scrutiny in the Plame case, that would make her a hub of the wheel in both espionage investigations. http://www.dailykos.com/...
Her proximity to Bush makes her a particularly key link between Plamegate and OSP-APIPAC, particularly as it now appears her role spans both cases.
The AIPAC-OSP case is all about Iran, specifically intelligence officers at the Israeli Embassy in DC were working with neocons in the Pentagon to salt DoD files and stovepipe intelligence about Iran. What was the nasty surprise about Iran (or was it Iraq?) that Condi was trying to cook up with lobbyists for Israeli in the Spring of 2003?
Circumstantial evidence for this interpretation is also provided by the parallel efforts by Rosen and Franklin to plant stories about Iranian WMDs at the NYT. See, www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/2/14024/94613
2/2/06 FBI Probes AIPAC Leak of Classified Iran Docs to NYT
The FBI is probing an effort by two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to disclose classified information to the New York Times. This appears to have been part of an effort to cultivate Times reporters in order to selectively leak classified Iran WMD documents.
Larry Franklin, a former Iran desk officer at the Pentagon, recently pleaded guilty to trading classified papers with Israeli intelligence officers and employees at AIPAC. Two AIPAC employees accused of working with Franklin are now being tried in federal court in Alexandria, VA.
This prosecution follows the much publicized scandal involving ex-NYT reporter, Judy Miller, as the conduit of false information about Iraq WMD.
The Times is burying this story breaking today at the bottom of its on-line National page.
MORE BELOW . . .
leveymg's diary :: ::
In a short article in its on-line edition, the NYT is reporting that Times staff have been questioned by federal investigators in recent days about efforts by AIPAC employees to leak classified documents.
Two NYT reporters were approached by AIPAC employees with classified documents. Larry Franklin, a former Iran desk officer at the Pentagon Office of Special Plans(OSP), was recently convicted of trading secret documents with Israeli intelligence officers and representatives of AIPAC in Washington, DC.
This raises a question about the nature of the documents. Was this the classified material that Franklin himself had salted into Pentagon files at the behest of his handler, the Mossad Chief of Station at the Israeli Embassy in DC?
The Franklin indictment states that the former DoD officer incorporated changes suggested by a foreign intelligence officer into documents on Iran he was preparing for OSP. See, www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/15/12176/9231 also see Franklin Indictment, pp 23-24, para 6. ("FO3" is Naor Gilon, the former Mossad chief who fled the country after word of the FBI's investigation into Franklin and AIPAC was first leaked during the summer of 2004.) physics911.net/franklinpdf2.pdf
The NYT report is extracted below:
www.nytimes.com/2006/02/02/national/02franklin.html?
r=2&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
2 Times Reporters Queried in Federal Investigation
By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: February 2, 2006
"WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 -- Federal agents contacted two reporters from The New York Times on Wednesday seeking information about a former Pentagon official and two representatives of a pro-Israel lobbying group who have been at the center of a criminal investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
The requests were made to David S. Cloud and Steven R. Weisman, reporters in The Times's Washington bureau. Mr. Cloud was asked about possible contacts he had in the spring of 2003 with representatives of the lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. At the time, Mr. Cloud was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal."
SNIP
A government official who has been briefed on the matter said that agents had contacted reporters from several news organizations."
The agents, the official said, are trying to determine whether reporters received national security information intended to influence their reporting on the Middle East."
SNIP
The requests follow the Jan. 23 sentencing of Lawrence A. Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst and expert on Iran. Mr. Franklin's sentencing, to a term of more than 12 years after a guilty plea, refocused the case on two former Aipac officials, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, who are scheduled to go on trial in April. Each has pleaded not guilty."
If this is what it appears to be, here is additional proof of Track Two of the effort by a neocon cabal and Israeli intelligence to plant false WMD data with the intent of driving the United States into an expanding war in the Middle-East.
***
Was Condi cooking the books with the Israelis on Iran or was it Iraq WMDs? Did Bush authorize that leak, too? Either way, if Lowell is being factual, then it seems more likely Condi is going to jail than to the top job at either the White House or the National Football League.
___________
2006. Mark G. Levey