Israel has denied it spied on the US following the revelation that the FBI is investigating a highly placed Pentagon analyst suspected of being an spy who passed secret documents about Iran to Israel. The suspect allegedly had ties to Rumsfeld's deputy Paul Wolfowitz and may have been in a position to influence Bush administration policy on Iran and Iraq.
Israeli officials insisted today that Israel had not spied on the United States since being caught red-handed two decades ago in an espionage scandal involving US Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard, arrested in 1985 outside the Israeli embassy.
"We deny carrying out any intelligence activity. It is a strange story," said a senior Israeli government official, who declined to be identified. "Israel, for many years, has not carried out intelligence activity in the United States."
US government officials said the analyst under investigation was connected to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office and is suspected of passing the documents to Israel via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
The sources declined to identify the suspect and said no one had been arrested and no charges brought. The Israeli Embassy denied the allegations. "They are completely false and outrageous," an embassy spokesman said. AIPAC called the charges "baseless and false."
The Washington Post and New York Times quoted the Pentagon as saying in a statement that it was cooperating with the Justice Department. "The investigation involves a single individual at the Department of Defence at the desk officer level who was not in a position to have significant influence over US policy," the papers quoted the statement as saying.
"Nor could a foreign power be in a position to influence US policy through this individual. To the best of the Department of Defence's knowledge, the investigation does not target any other DOD individuals." CBS News, which first reported the story yesterday, said federal agents were about to arrest the suspect, who it said may have been in a position to influence Bush administration policy on Iran and Iraq.
The network said the analyst had ties to Rumsfeld's deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Defence Undersecretary Douglas Feith, both regarded as leading architects of the war on Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in March last year.
Asked whether the suspect worked under Feith, the number three Pentagon official, and William Luti, a senior official in the Pentagon's policy section, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita declined comment. "It's a criminal matter and we don't comment on criminal matters," he said. According to CBS, one of the documents passed to Israel was a draft presidential directive on US policy toward Iran - placed by Bush in an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea.
The network described the spy as "a trusted analyst" assigned to the unit within the Defence Department tasked with helping develop Iraq policy. The New York Times reported the analyst worked for Feith, who created a special intelligence unit before the Iraq war that had sought to build a case that Baghdad had ties to al Qaeda - a position that has been criticised by intelligence professionals.
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Feith and Luti set up this unit that ended up finding a close relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq that later became an important element for invading Iraq. Another office under both men was crucial in developing policy months before the Iraq war on post-war planning.
The Washington Post reported on its Web site that the official under suspicion specialised in Iranian affairs and was a veteran of the Defence Intelligence Agency who was nearing retirement. The Post said the investigation started more than a year ago, and it was unclear if the charges would be espionage or the lesser allegation of mishandling classified information.
One of the most damaging blows to US-Israeli relations in recent times was dealt by a 1985 spying case in which US Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard was charged with passing secrets to the Jewish state. He was sentenced to life in prison and his continued incarceration is still an irritant in US-Israeli ties.