A Treasonous Camarilla
AIPAC espionage case points to larger spy scandalby
Justin Raimondo
Phase two" of the investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence into how we got it wrong on Iraq has been delayed for quite some time, initially because of Sen. Pat Roberts' outright blocking tactics, and now, apparently, due to a Pentagon internal investigation into the activities of former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, who oversaw a key albeit little-known and highly secretive intelligence-gathering unit, the "Office of Special Plans." A central figure in Washington's neoconservative network, Feith resigned a year ago, just as suspicion was falling on him and his subordinates in a string of interconnected scandals: the WMD "intelligence" flap, Ahmed Chalabi's connections to Iranian intelligence, and the AIPAC spy case.
Last May, I speculated that these matters might have something to do with Feith's sudden resignation, and now it looks like I was right. Raw Story is reporting that "phase two" of the SSCI investigation is being held up by the Pentagon's self-probe, while the senators await
"A report from the Pentagon inspector general as to Feith's alleged role in manipulating prewar intelligence to support a case for war. Feith, who is also being probed by the FBI for his role in an Israeli spy case, resigned in January 2005…. One former intelligence source points to 'a bigger can of worms' that a Feith investigation may unravel, pointing to the Israeli spy case – in which Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin passed classified information to a pro-Israeli lobby – and to the Defense Department's own inability to address security breaches."Feith is one of the more ideological neocons, with connections to the far-right wing of Israel's Likud Party and the settler movement. He presided over a newly created team of intelligence analysts – the Office of Special Plans (OSP) – whose job it was to think up the War Party's talking points. According to Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force officer and Pentagon analyst, Feith's Office of Special Plans was created from a narrow range of neoconservative think tanks – most notably the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a think tank founded by AIPAC officials and long associated with Israel's Washington lobby. Among the neocon activists who worked with the Near East and South Asia (NESA) bureau, we have one David Schenker, previously a WINEP research fellow, and Churchill expert Michael Makovsky, younger brother of senior WINEP fellow David Makovsky, formerly executive editor of the Jerusalem Post. It was a tightly knit little group, Kwiatkowski has testified:
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8491 (edited to fix mistake in subject)