JAMES BAMFORD, washwriter@gmail.com
Bamford’s latest book is Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence. He just wrote the piece “Israel’s Assassination Program and Its Ties to U.S. Intelligence” for The Nation, which states: “The massive U.S. nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Theodore Roosevelt once again cocked, loaded with fighter jets, and ready for another bloody war, while escorted by heavily armed destroyers, cruisers, and submarines. … Should his decision to murder [Hamas political head] Haniyeh spark a bloody regional war, Netanyahu was confident that the U.S. would, as always, come to Israel’s defense. ‘Our support for Israel’s security is ironclad and unwavering against all Iran-backed threats, including Hezbollah,’ a State Department spokesperson said, almost robotically. …
“Long before the two most recent attacks, Netanyahu had already turned Israel into Assassination, Inc. In Iran alone, Israeli agents have assassinated more than half a dozen scientists and engineers involved with that country’s nuclear program. With no pushback on Israel from the White House, it is apparently expected that Iran should simply accept such violent attacks on its citizens with no retribution. In 2019, for example, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top scientist, was killed by a remote-controlled robot gun that had been concealed at the side of a road outside Tehran. …
“For decades the U.S. and Israel have had highly secret intelligence-sharing arrangements that have included ‘frameworks’ dealing with the topic of providing assistance for assassinations — targeted killings. This was revealed in several Top Secret/Codeword documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. …[I]n addition to the massive amount of intelligence shared with them, the Israelis kept demanding more, including highly sophisticated geolocation information in order to conduct assassinations, something prohibited by U.S. law. Nevertheless, bowing to Israel’s insistence that it be given an ‘exemption,’ in the end an apparent compromise was worked out: ISNU’s [the Israeli Sigint National Unit] reliance on NSA was equally demanding and centered on requests for time-sensitive tasking, threat warning, including tactical ELINT [Electronic Intelligence]. And receipt of geolocational information on Hezbollah elements. …
“[I]t seems highly likely that [Israel] would also be given whatever it asked for in terms of intelligence — including targeting and geolocation details as well as human source reporting, all of which could greatly assist in carrying out assassinations. Such actions, however, have serious consequences, including potentially involving the United States in another deadly and prolonged Middle East war. And the longer the genocide continues, the greater the chances of a large-scale regional war, with the U.S. at the center.”
Bamford’s past pieces for The Nation include “The Trump Campaign’s Collusion With Israel” and “How U.S. Intelligence and an American Company Feed Israel’s Killing Machine in Gaza,” largely about Palantir.