LAT: Israel Has Long Spied on US,Say Officials(but CIA, Mossad "intimate")

[DeepModem Mom]

THE WORLD
Israel Has Long Spied on U.S., Say Officials

By Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, Times Staff Writers


WASHINGTON — Despite its fervent denials, Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the United States that has long attempted to recruit U.S. officials as spies and to procure classified documents, U.S. government officials said.

FBI and other counterespionage agents, in turn, have covertly followed, bugged and videotaped Israeli diplomats, intelligence officers and others in Washington, New York and elsewhere, the officials said. The FBI routinely watches many diplomats assigned to America....


***

At the same time, experts said relations between the CIA and Israel's chief intelligence agency, the Mossad, were so close that analysts sometimes shared highly classified "code-word" intelligence on sensitive subjects. Tel Aviv routinely informs Washington of the identities of the Mossad station chief and the military intelligence liaison at its embassy in America.

"They probably get 98% of everything they want handed to them on a weekly basis," said the former senior U.S. intelligence officer who has worked closely with Israeli intelligence. "They're very active allies. They're treated the way the British are."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spyprobe3sep03,1,4068220.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[DarkPhenyx]

1. Can you say "Duh!"?

We spy on them, they spy on us, the French watch us spy on eachother, we spy on the French spying on us spying on eachother.

One of the last true "Gentleman's" games left.

[Wright Patman]

2. Britain, Israel and U.S.

are increasingly viewed as, ahem, an "axis of evil" by the rest of the non-imperialistic world.

[Jim Sagle]

8. Strangely enough, this tracks Charles Lindbergh's jeremiads against

"the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration."

Lindbergh of course was an ideological enemy of the real Wight Patman.

[allemand]

3. I wonder who might be that "former intelligence official"

"who recently left government"?

"There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States," said a former intelligence official who was familiar with the latest FBI probe and who recently left government. "Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States."

<...>

"They undertake a wide range of technical operations and human operations," the former official said. "People here as liaison … aggressively pursue classified intelligence from people. The denials are laughable."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spyprobe3sep03,1,4068220.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Judi Lynn]

4. I find this "biting the hand which feeds you."

Why should the American taxpayers indulge spies from a country we send massive infusions of our own hard-earned wages?

Let other countries spy on each other. Let's NOT pay people to spy on us.

[Hornito]

5. Even more importantly, is why have the Bushies allowed an

outside country to influence their war plans. I think they were scratching each others' backs. The Cheney oil mongers and the military wanted a war, with oil, and Israel was the cheer leading section, providing the phony intelligence to supposedly justify the operation.

Regardless, all those involved, are guilty of treason. They have betrayed this nation, as have those members of Congress who have been protecting these traitors.

[kayell]

6. Well, they certainly weren't going to listen to some focus group

protesters now, were they. The US as a representative democracy is over unless we get Kerry in, and even then we will have to work damn hard to save it. The only thing these current assholes represent is their corporate masters and the religious rw.

[Judi Lynn]

7. I just can't accept this new info. It's really a damned shame.

From the article:

"There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States," said a former intelligence official who was familiar with the latest FBI probe and who recently left government. "Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States."

The former official discounted repeated Israeli denials that the country exceeded acceptable limits to obtain information.

"They undertake a wide range of technical operations and human operations," the former official said. "People here as liaison … aggressively pursue classified intelligence from people. The denials are laughable."

Pathetic.

[Jacobin]

9. "Intimate"

What a vapid euphemism for being raped by Israel.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Here's the "intimate" quote --

"Another former intelligence operative who has worked with Israeli intelligence agreed. 'The relationship with Israeli intelligence is as intimate as it gets,' he said."

[noonwitch]

10. I look at it this way-Israel doesn't trust the US for some good reasons

Mainly, because of Iran/Contra. What kind of allies were we to Israel when we were selling weapons to Iran, a nation that had at that point already held our diplomats hostage and made clear that they wanted no more Israel? When we funded both sides of the Iran/Iraq war, or helped make bin Laden a more effective terrorist?

The Israelis are wise not to trust the BFEE. If only they'd get their heads out of their butts and get rid of Sharon (and the Palestineans do the same with Arafat), they might find a way to end the infitada.

[realFedUp]

12. Front page LA Times story will surprise average Americans - n/t

[MGKrebs]

13. And yet, the real problem probably isn't the info they get,

it's the allegation that they 'create' intelligence and then feed it back to us as a way to influence our policy.

Presumably, the relationship is 'intimate' enough that intel from Israel does not need to be vetted. This might also be true of England, and evidently Chalabi!

[realFedUp]

14. Chalabi seemed to have a trifecta...Israel, Iran and the US

geez, the guy gets around.

[Snazzy]

15. Commondreams link kick

(LAT cookie system drives me nuts)

Also see this LBN, AP story that says White House knew about FBI probe(Condi/Hadley) since 2001. Good Amer. Prospect link in there too:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=800454

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0903-24.htm