The New York Times reports today that “Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted interviews with two officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are suspected of passing classified information from a Pentagon analyst to Israeli intelligence, government officials and a lawyer for the committee said on Tuesday. On Friday, F.B.I. agents visited the two officials of the group, Steven Rosen, the organization’s director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, one of its experts on Iran, said Nathan Lewin, a lawyer for the pro-Israel lobbying group, known as AIPAC…. The authorities said that Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman knew Lawrence A. Franklin, the Defense Department analyst who is suspected of giving them classified information related to American policy toward Iran. Mr. Franklin is a lower-level analyst who works on Iranian issues in the office of Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy.”

The following specialists are available for interviews:

STEPHEN GREEN
Author of the book Taking Sides: America’s Secret Relations With a Militant Israel, Green was interviewed in June by the FBI about his expertise on Israeli espionage against the United States. Green said today: “Contrary to the rhetoric coming from AIPAC and the Israeli government, there is a long history of Israel spying on the United States.”
More Information

KAREN KWIATKOWSKI
A retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Kwiatkowski worked until the Spring of 2003 in the Pentagon’s office of Near East/South Asia and Special Plans at the Pentagon. She knows Lawrence Franklin and recently wrote the piece “Spies in the Pentagon?” She said today: “Larry is very possibly a patsy. It’s unlike him to go off doing something like giving classified documents to AIPAC unless it was what the higher ups wanted him to do or he considered this a routine channel. Feith and [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz are both very friendly with Israel and supportive of Likud policies. One time shortly before the invasion of Iraq, several Israeli generals came to the Pentagon, and they did not sign in Mr. Feith’s security book, a procedure mandated for all other guests and ambassadors; it was an illustration of the broad cooperative nature we have with Israel…. This starts to get at some of the real motives of U.S. policy in the Mideast, it’s not about fostering democracy. It’s about changing the landscape of the region.” Kwiatkowski has not been interviewed by the FBI about the current case.
More Information

MICHAEL SABA
Author of the seminal book The Armageddon Network and an international business consultant, Saba said today: “I wrote the book after I overheard Stephen Bryen, then a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in the Madison Hotel Coffee Shop [in D.C. in 1978] offering classified documents to an official of the Israeli Embassy. The FBI repeatedly questioned me as to whether AIPAC was involved in the conversation. Bryen is a close associate of Richard Perle’s. This incident led to an investigation and a recommendation to go to Grand Jury, but in time it was business as usual. Currently, Bryen is a member of the China Commission, which requires high level security clearances.”
More Information
See the document “Israeli Spying on the US: A Long History”