TBR News May 3, 2018

The Voice of the White House 

Washington, D.C. May 3, 2018:” Fat Bibi has been waddling around on the stage, running a genuine comedy show, trying to prove that Iran has nuclear weapons.

By doing this bit of grotesque fiction, he hopes to convince Donald Trump of the necessity for the United States to attack Iran for him.

Bibi, who privately calls Trump a ‘comb-over closet queen’) thinks he has influence with Trump but if Bibi is correct in his evaluation of the president, he is far too ugly to attract any physical interest.

One day, hopefully sooner rather than later, Bibi will say, or do, the wrong thing and Hezbollah will begin its rocket attack program against Israel.”

Table of Contents

• Dumb Moves Have Consequences
• Trump and the Iran Deal: Expect the Unexpected?
• Trump claims immunity, asks court to toss foreign payments suit
• An Overview of Israeli Espionage against the U.S.
• Secrecy News
• Donald Trump admits to reimbursing lawyer for hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels

 

Dumb Moves Have Consequences

The nuclear agreement with Iran is worth preserving

May 1, 2018

by Philip Giraldi

The Unz Review

The analysis of the recent exchanges between French President Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump suggest that Washington is most likely about to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran that was signed by the U.S. and five other governments in July 2015. The decision will likely be made public before the deadline on re-ratifying the agreement, which is May 12th. As one informed observer has noted, “a train wreck is probably coming, with very damaging consequences that are hard to predict.”

Macron was polite, both in his meeting with Trump and during his speech before Congress, not hammering on the unimaginable awfulness of the White House decision while also offering an alternative, i.e. cooperation with the United States to improve the nuclear agreement while also supporting the principle that it is worth saving. Whether that subtle nudge, coupled with a pledge that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon, will be enough to change minds either in Congress or the White House is questionable as the unfortunate truth is that going to war with Iran is popular among the policy makers and media for the usual reason: it is a major foreign policy objective of the Israeli government and its powerful U.S. lobby.

Iran has been vilified for decades in the American media and it rarely gets a fair hearing anywhere, even when its behavior has not been particularly objectionable. Currently, it is regularly demonized by the Israelis and their supporters over its apparent plan to create an arc of Shi’a states extending through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, a so-called “land bridge” to the Mediterranean Sea. What that would accomplish exactly has never really been made clear and it assumes that the Syrians and Iraqis would happily surrender their sovereignty to further the project.

The Iranians for their part have made it clear that no modification of the agreement is possible. They note, correctly, that the JCPOA was not a bilateral commitment made between Tehran and Washington. It also included as signatories Russia, China, France, Britain and the European Union and was ratified by the United Nations (P5+1). They and others also have noted that U.S. exit from the agreement will mean that other nations will negotiate with Washington with the understanding that a legal commitment entered into by the President of the United States cannot be trusted after he is out of office.

Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce by two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. For the next 15 years, Iran will only enrich uranium up to non-weapons level of 3.67%. Iran also pledged not to build any new heavy-water facilities and to limit uranium-enrichment activities for research and medical purposes to a plant using old technology centrifuges for a period of 10 years. To guarantee compliance with the agreement, Iran accepted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) proposal that it have highly intrusive access by a team of unannounced inspectors of all the country’s nuclear facilities. In return, Iran was to receive relief from U.S., European Union, and United Nations Security Council sanctions, an aspect of the agreement that the United States has never fully complied with.

Trump’s objection to the agreement is that it is a “bad deal” that virtually guarantees that Iran will have a nuclear weapon somewhere down the road. There is, however, no factual basis for that claim and that it is being made at all is largely reflective of Israeli and Israel Lobby propaganda. It is, on the contrary, an American interest not to have another nuclear proliferator in the Middle East in addition to Israel, which Washington has never dared to confront on the issue. The JCPOA agreement guarantees that Iran will not work to develop a weapon for at least ten years which is a considerable benefit considering that Tehran, if it had chosen to initiate such a program, could easily have had breakout capability in one year.

The U.S. and Israel are also expressing concern about Iranian ballistic missile capability. Again, ballistic missiles would appear to be a weapon that Israel alone seeks to monopolize in its neighborhood because it seeks to regard itself as uniquely threatened, that is, always the victim. It is an argument that sells well in the U.S. Congress and in the media, which has apparently also obtained traction in the White House. It is nevertheless a fake argument contrived by the Israelis. The missiles under development do not in any way threaten the United States and they were not in any event part of the agreement and should not be considered a deal breaker.

Ironically, the JCPOA is approved of by most Americans because it prevents the development of yet another potentially hostile nuclear armed power in a volatile part of the world. American Jews, in fact, support it more than other Americans, according to opinion polls. Even the generals in the Pentagon favor continuing it as do U.S. close allies Germany, France and Britain. The ability of Israel and its Lobby to dominate U.S. foreign policy formulation in certain areas is thereby exposed for what it is: sheer manipulation of our system of government by a small group dedicated to the interests of a foreign government using money and the political access that money buys to achieve that objective.

Those who argue that the withdrawal of the U.S. from JCPOA will be countered by the continued cooperation of the other signatories to the agreement are, one might unfortunately note, somewhat delusional. The U.S. has tremendous leverage in financial markets. If it chooses to sanction Iran over its missiles while also re-introducing the old sanctions relating to the nuclear developments, it would be a brave European or Asian banker who would risk being blocked out of the American market by lending money or selling certain prohibited goods to the Iranians. The United States could force the entire JCPOA quid pro quo agreement to collapse, and that might be precisely what the White House intends to do.

Add into the equation the clearly expressed and oft-times repeated Israeli intention to begin a war with Iran, starting in Syria, sooner rather than later, a disaster for American foreign policy is developing that might well make Iraq and Afghanistan look like cake walks. Iran will surely strike back in response either to the termination of the JCPOA or to Israeli bombing of its militiamen and surrogates in Syria. America forces in the region will surely be sucked into the conflict by Israel and will wind up taking the fall. Someone should tell Donald Trump that there are real world consequences for breaking agreements and rattling sabers. But who will tell him? Will it be John Bolton or Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo? I doubt it.

[This article was written before Benjamin Netanyahu came out with his Powerpoint presentation of lies and half truths to justify demonizing Iran over its non-existent nuclear weapons program. He failed to mention that Israel has a 200 nuke arsenal undeclared and is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran has no weapons, is a signatory and is subject to unannounced inspections of all its sites. Bibi is attempting to pound the last nail in the coffin of the JCPOA by convincing a clueless Trump that he should walk away from the deal. He apparently will be successful. For those who are interested, Scott Ritter has dissected and dismissed the Israeli claims (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/iranian-nukes-scaremongering-netanyahu-strikes-again/). I note in passing that there are several new hasbara chiming in on this article, perhaps a sign that they are getting nervous over the increased criticism that has been getting leveled against the rogue self-proclaimed Jewish State since it starting shooting Gazans and agitating for a war against Iran.]

 

Trump and the Iran Deal: Expect the Unexpected?

The President may surprise everyone – again

May 3, 2018

by Justin Raimondo

AntiWar

The Israeli propaganda machine is working overtime in the run-up to the May deadline for Trump’s decision on recertifying the Iran deal. So what did all that buildup to Netanyahu’s big announcement amount to? Less than nothing, i.e., documents that prove what we already knew – that Iran did have a nuclear program prior to 2003. As our own intelligence agencies long ago concluded, they discontinued it and haven’t restarted it since then. Oh, but then why did the Iranians keep all these thousands of documents, the Israelis ask. Doesn’t this in itself portend a future weaponization program?

Well, no, it doesn’t, but then again I doubt whether the Israelis mean to be all that convincing: they’re just signaling to President Trump exactly what’s expected of him, which raises the question: could someone who glories in his own unpredictability once again do the exact opposite of what’s expected of him? The Bolton and Pompeo appointments, the latter’s visit to Israel, and Trump’s rhetorical opposition to the deal all signal he’s going to decertify. Yet what’s changed since the last two deadlines, both of which passed without a formal rejection of the JCPOA?

One thing that’s changed is the situation on the Korean peninsula, where the prospect of an historic agreement to end the Korean war and rid the region of nuclear weapons is in the works – thanks, in large part, to the Trump administration, i.e. the President himself. By agreeing to an unprecedented meeting with the North Korean leader, Trump is banking on a big “win” – indeed, a history-making one. Yet this is a recent development, one set in motion by the Koreans, to be sure, and eagerly endorsed by President “Fire and Fury,” who, in the space of a few months, has taken us from the brink of war to the Age of Aquarius.

The salient point is that the anti-Iran deal rhetoric preceded the Korean breakthrough – and the President can hardly let the former derail the latter. Trump’s critics carp that his fusillades targeting the Iran deal as “the worst deal ever” are bound to make Kim Jong-un draw back, and yet a) we haven’t seen any evidence of this, and b) that possibility may motivate Trump to draw back from decertifying Iranian compliance with the JCPOA.

Bibi’s performance, complete with the usual dorky visual aids, may not have been all that effective as hasbara, but then again it was really aimed at an audience of one: Donald J. Trump. Which makes one wonder….

While everyone is assuming Trump has decided to nix the Iran deal, do the Israelis have some inside knowledge that this assumption may be unwarranted?  If the decision not to recertify is in the bag, then why the elaborate propaganda campaign seemingly aimed at a single person?

The administration has successfully straddled the fence on this issue so far, and despite appearances the Israel lobby is not pleased with the one American politician who’s wildly popular in Israel. Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem is a symbolic gesture that ultimately means nothing: what has the lobby hopping mad, however, is the President’s extreme reluctance to get dragged into Syria. The recent Israeli air strikes against Syrian targets are a provocation designed to accomplish precisely that: Bibi knows that any war between Israel and Iran will see the Americans involved after the first few hours. They may start the war, but we’ll be the ones to finish it – or so the Israelis would like to believe.

While every alliance is a tripwire, our “special relationship” with Israel is indeed a unique case in that a relatively weak protectorate is issuing the global hegemon its marching orders. Historically and logically it’s supposed to be the other way around. This odd geopolitical malady showed its first symptoms during the Reagan administration, and really metastasized in the Bush II era. Whether Trump’s “America First” brand of rather inconsistent “isolationism” is the right medicine to cure or even ameliorate the more obnoxious symptoms remains to be seen: count me as skeptical. However, the last thing this administration needs is another war in the Middle East, and of that I’m sure the President and his political advisors are well aware. And so the surface appearances of a White House in perfect lockstep with the Israelis are belied by the fundamental conflict at the base of the relationship.

This dissonance is bound to be underscored by the contrast between what the Trump administration appears to promise the Israelis and what is actually delivered. A US Embassy moved to Jerusalem? Sure, why not? How about a US invasion and occupation of Syria? Will Bibi take a rain check on that?

French President Macron reportedly failed to persuade Trump that the Iran deal could be renegotiated, and the Iranians have said they won’t agree to it in any case, and yet I find it hard to believe that Trump will resist the deal-making temptation. That way he can have it both ways, rejecting the JCPOA while holding out the possibility that it can be “fixed.” Whether this involves officially decertifying Iran’s compliance with the agreement is the key question, because that will automatically trigger the reimposition of sanctions.

They said Trump would start World War III on the Korean peninsula – and instead, he’s inaugurating what could end up being the emergence of a radically transformed North Korea into the international community.

They said Trump would shut down the opposition, abolish the First Amendment, and establish a fascist dictatorship. Here it is over a year later and none of those things has happened.

For months they’ve been telling us Trump will end the Iran deal and start us on a very short march to war in the Middle East – but what if they’re wrong about that, too?

 

Trump claims immunity, asks court to toss foreign payments suit

May 2, 2018

by Susan Heavey

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump has again asked a U.S. court to dismiss a suit accusing him of flouting constitutional safeguards against corruption by refusing to separate himself from his business empire while in office, claiming “absolute immunity.”

The lawsuit, filed by the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia, accused Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution’s “emoluments” clause that bars U.S. officials from accepting gifts or other payments from foreign governments without congressional approval. The same clause also bars the president from receiving gifts and payments from individual states.

“If Plaintiffs want to sue the President for acts taken while in office, they must sue him in official capacity. But he is absolutely immune from any suit, including this one, seeking to impose individual liability premised on his assumption of the Presidency itself,” Trump’s lawyer William Consovoy wrote in a court filing on Tuesday.

“The Supreme Court has concluded that the costs to the Nation of allowing such suits to distract the President from his official duties outweigh any countervailing interests. That choice must be respected,” Consovoy added.

Trump’s legal team previously sought to have the case tossed out but U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte in Greenbelt, Maryland, last month let it proceed even as he narrowed the claims only to those related to Trump’s hotel in downtown Washington.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine, both Democrats, argued in their suit, filed last June, that local residents were harmed by unfair competition by Trump’s hotel and other businesses. Lawyers for the Republican president previously argued that such harm was speculative and difficult to link directly to Trump.

Trump, whose businesses include a host of real estate properties as well as golf courses and a Virginia winery, handed day-to-day management to two of his sons. But the plaintiffs said Trump has not disentangled himself and is vulnerable to inducements by people, including foreign officials, seeking to curry favor.

Frosh and Racine have indicated they will seek numerous documents related to Trump, including his tax returns. Trump has bucked precedent by not releasing his tax returns during his 2016 presidential campaign or as president.

A U.S. judge in Manhattan in December threw out a similar lawsuit against Trump brought by another group of plaintiffs.

Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham

 

An Overview of Israeli Espionage against the U.S.

May 3, 2018

by Christian Jürs

Between 2010 and early 2017, more than 600 Israeli nationals were arrested or detained inside the United States, on a variety of visa violations and other nominally petty violations, including low-level drug trafficking. The majority of these detainees claimed they were Israeli art students, peddling art work to cover their college tuitions; or were toy vendors, employed by an Israeli-owned Miami Beach company, Quality Sales Corporation, which investigations link to Israel’s equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency.

The emerging pattern of surveillance of American government facilities, and established links to suspected Arab and Islamic terrorist cells prior to Sept. 11, by these Israeli nationals, set off alarm bells, following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Prior to Sept. 11, a series of highly-classified government memos had been circulated by the CIA and the NSA, pronouncing this Israeli espionage operation a major national security problem.

Israel is not a friend to the United States. This is because Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks targeting the US. The fact of Israeli penetration into the country is not a subject that is ever discussed in the media or in the circles of governance, due to the extreme sensitivity of the US-Israel relationship coupled with the burden of the Israel lobby, which punishes legislators who dare to criticize the Jewish state.

In 2014 the FBI noted that Israel maintains “an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States.” A key Israeli method, said the FBI report, is computer intrusion. In 2013, the Defense Intelligence Service, a branch of the Pentagon, issued a warning that “the collection of scientific intelligence in the United States [is] the third highest priority of Israeli Intelligence after information on its Arab neighbors and information on secret US policies or decisions relating to Israel.” In 2016, the Central Intelligence Agency produced a scathing survey of Israeli intelligence activities that targeted the US government. Like any worthy spy service, Israeli intelligence early on employed wiretaps as an effective tool, according to the CIA report. In 1954, the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv discovered in his office a hidden microphone “planted by the Israelis,” and two years later telephone taps were found in the residence of the US military attaché In a telegram to Washington, the ambassador at the time cabled a warning: “Department must assume that all conversations [in] my office are known to the Israelis.” The former ambassador to Qatar, Andrew Killgore, who also served as a foreign officer in Jerusalem and Beirut, told me Israeli taps of US missions and embassies in the Middle East were part of a “standard operating procedure.”

According to the 2016 CIA report, the Israelis, while targeting political secrets, also devote “a considerable portion of their covert operations to obtaining scientific and technical intelligence.” These operations involved, among other machinations, “attempts to penetrate certain classified defense projects in the United States.” The penetrations, according to the CIA report, were effected using “deep cover enterprises,” which the report described as “firms and organizations, some specifically created for, or adaptable to, a specific objective.” . . .

The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hard-line conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.

As the then-most powerful man in the White House, Cheney was deeply involved in the intelligence field and made three trips to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to demand a more ‘forward-leaning interpretation’ of information relating to the possibility that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. That there were no such weapons and that the CIA so advised the Vice President, he refused to accept their analysis and continued to insist that they produce documents supporting his thesis. In this he was aided by his chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, The latter was later convicted of a felony connected to the intelligence community and sentenced to prison. Libby threatened to expose the Bush administration and President Bush commuted Libby’s jail sentence. In 2018 Libby received a full pardon from President Trump.

The OSP had access to an enormous amount of “raw” intelligence which came, in part, from the CIA’s directorate of operations whose job it is to receive and evaluate incoming reports from their agents around the world.

I Background of Israeli foreign and domestic intelligence: The origin of Israeli intelligence services lies in the underground organizations that were formed to assist Aliya (Jewish immigration to Palestine), during the period of British mandate. In 1884, the Choveve Zion (the lovers of Zion) met in the Prussian city of Pinsk to constitute ideas on the return of the Jews to Palestine. Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State came out in 1896 and in the same year he convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland to consider the idea of a Jewish national homeland. In 1900, under the auspices of the fourth Zionist Congress, the Jewish National Fund was created whose task was to purchase land in Palestine . Upon the defeat of the Ottoman Empire with the Arab help, the British promised independence to the Palestinians. On the other hand, the British in 1917 issued the Balfour Declaration and pledged for the establishment of a national home for Jewish people in the land of Palestine, which later in 1922, was granted to Britain as a Òmandate’ by the League of Nations.

The Pre-1948 Waves of Jewish Immigration: The first Aliya took place from 1882-1904 and the second one from 1904-1914, both of which derived support from the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Jewish National Fund . During the British mandate, the Zionist underground resistance force, Haganah, had as its information arm, an organization known as Sherut Yedioth. The Sherut later came to be known as SHAI which began its worldwide operations in 1929 until an independent Israel was created in 1948 . Its task was to collect political intelligence for the sake of Zionist propaganda and to infiltrate the anti-Zionist and extremist groups in Palestine as well as the neighbouring Arab countries .

Two routes of immigration were open to the Jews to emigrate from Europe, one legal and the other illegal. The legal immigration was allowed by the British but the numbers were small. Between 1939-1944, Britain allowed 75,000 Jews to enter Palestine legally and after that, if it allowed more Jews to immigrate, it would do so only with the Arab consent. The Jewish agency that came into being due to the need for illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine was the Mossad le Aliyah Bet . This institution at that point incorporated ten people who worked in six countries: Switzerland, Austria, France, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. And it was the duty of these agents to make false passports, arrange escape routes and charter ships to take illegal immigrants to Palestine without being detected by the British authorities .

Another pre-independence agency that formed the executing arm of the Haganah was Palmach which was military in character, whereas another organization Rekhesh was involved in covert operations and arms smuggling for the underground Jewish forces that had infiltrated the Arab townships .

The post-1948 agencies: After becoming an independent state the SHAI was disbanded in favour of IDF (Israeli Defence Forces). Its political department was responsible to collect intelligence worldwide. Sherut Bitachon Klali was formed as a general security service for the sake of internal security and counter-espionage, also known as SHABAK or Shin Beth in Hebrew .

In 1951, Ben-Gurion initiated the Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Duties (Mossad Letafkidim Meouychadim) commonly known as Mossad. Its initial function was to assess operation feasibility of military intelligence and nomination of targets, but after the creation of Military intelligence Agaf Modiin (AMAN) in 1953, it became independent of the Military Intelligence. In 1960, when Shimon Peres was in the ministry of defense, LEKEM (the Bureau of Scientific Relations) was instituted to collect scientific and technical intelligence for technological development, specially in relation to the weapon systems.

THE STRUCTURE OF ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE:

1. The Overall Structure of Israeli Intelligence Services:

With the exception of Mossad and Shin Beth, the overall structure of Israeli intelligence services can be understood as a confederation. The Israeli case displays a confederation structure at a tertiary level. In the sense that the MI is accountable to the director of military intelligence, who reports to the chief of staff, who in turn is responsible to the Minister of Defense. This bureaucratic chain of command is peculiar in a Confederation-type intelligence organization as in the case of UK. Similarly the Research and Political Handling Center through its own director is accountable to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs whereas the Special Division links up to the IG of National Police through the investigation department. And the IG, through the Ministry of Interior reports to the Prime Minister.

It is interesting to note that the Advisers on Intelligence and Anti-terrorism on one hand and the Advisers on Political and Military Matters on the other hand are directly linked with the Prime Minister, with each other and also with the Director General of Foreign Ministry and the Director of MI (See below, Figure 1):

FIGURE NO. 1 OVERALL STRUCTURE OF THE ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

(Source: Foreign Intelligence Organizations, Richelson.)

Adviser on Intelligence        PRIME MINISTER      Advisers on Political Matters

Adviser on Anti-Terrorism              Adviser on Military   Matters

Minister of Foreign Affairs    Minister of Interior    Minister of Defence

Director General                  Chief of Staff

Inspector General of National Police          Director of Mossad (Chairman of VaÕadat) MI   Dir of MI

Chief Research & Political Handling Center

Investigation Department    MOSSAD

Special Division

The organization of Mossad and Shin Beth is a centralized one with no intermediate layer of accountability between the Directors of Mossad, Shin Beth and the Prime Minister.

The Internal Structure of Mossad: The Mossad is based in Tel Aviv with recently estimated number of about 1,200 personnel and until lately, the identity of the Mossad director was a state secret. Mossad has a total of eight departments. The director oversees, the Research, Technology and Technical Operations Departments. The director also chaperons Operation Planning and Coordination, Manpower Finance Logistics and Security, Training, Collection and Political Action, and Liaison. The latter two conduct single or multiple stations in Central America, South America, Eastern Europe/USSR, Africa, Asia and Ocean, Mediterranean and the Middle East, Europe and North America. Under the Political Action and Liaison Department is known to exist the Special Operations Division which runs highly sensitive covert operations . (See Figure No. 2)

FIGURE NO. 2 INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF MOSSAD

(Organization of the Mossad (1971). Source: Foreign Intelligence Organizations; Jefferey Richelson)

Director

Research        Technology    Technical Operations

Dir. Collection           Director Political Action & Liaison Cent. America         Director Training       Director Manpower, Finance Logistics & Security   Director Operational Planning & Coordination

South America Special Operations Divisions

Eastern Europe/ USSR

Africa

Asia & Oceana

Mediterranean & the Near East

Europe

North America

Intelligence is direction of Field Security Units, Territorial Command Combat Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and Naval Intelligence .

Lastly, the General Security Service of Israel is known as Shin Beth, which is primarily responsible for counter-espionage and internal security. Shin Beth is organized into eight operational and functional departments: Arab Affairs, Non-Arab Affairs, Protective Security, Operational Support, Technology, Interrogation and Legal Counsel, Coordination and Planning, and Administration . The first three constitute the operational division and the rest, Support Divisions. Although there is a deputy director’s office, all of the other departments are also directly responsible to the director.

Coordination of the Israeli Management Structure: The pivotal faculty of Intelligence Community in Israel is known as the Va’adat Rashei Hasherutim or simply Va’adat. The Va’adat consists of the directors of Mossad, AMAN, Shin Beth and IG Police.

It also includes the Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Director of the Research and Political Planning Center and the anti-terrorist advisers of the Prime Minister, political and military both. All the members of Va’adat are supposedly at parity, however, in terms of importance and power, the director of AMAN is known to eclipse the director of Mossad .

FUNCTIONS OF THE ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

1. Functions of Mossad: Mossad’s essential functions are: human intelligence collection, covert action and counter terrorism. Its primary focus is to do clandestine operations against the Arab countries as well as against other organizations throughout the world 19. The Mossad collects information on the leadership, disposition, morale and armaments of the Arab Military forces . Mossad monitors the Arab commercial activity in relation to weapons acquisition and attempts to sabotage the Arab states recruitment of military, economic and political experts.

Although exact functional detail remains somewhat abstruse, the largest of the departments with responsibility for most espionage operations is the Department of Collections. The Political Action and Liaison Department is responsible for liaison with friendly states, as well as those states that do not have any diplomatic ties with Israel. Israeli liaison and maneuvering between friendly and non-friendly states is amazingly professional.

It exchanges intelligence information not only with countries like the US with whom it has formal ties, but also with states as diverse as Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and India. It provided Pakistan some information on India that was obtained by the Israeli agent in the US, Jonathan Jay Pollard, in return for some strategic information about some other countries. At the same time Israel exchanged information with India about the Pakistan’s endeavours to construct the atom bomb .

The Special Operations Division or Metsada conducts highly sensitive assassinations, engages in sabotage, paramilitary operations and psychological warfare projects . Among the least violent functions of Mossad is its liaison, propaganda and training . About 10 Israeli agents trained nearly one hundred Sri Lankans in intelligence tactics in order to combat the Tamil Separatists in Northern Sri Lanka . Among the more violent functions of Mossad are kidnapping and assassinations. Colonel Mustapha Hafez, an Egyptian intelligence officer was killed by Mossad as he was considered a key element in the organization of the Palestinians . In 1972, in Munich, Germany the Black September faction of PLO kidnapped and subsequently killed ten Israeli athletes in an attempt to recover two hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. This started the most extensive set of assassinations undertaken by the Mossad. The Mossad set up a special unit called the Wrath of God to carry out this operation which it successfully completed by eliminating its targets one by one .

Lohamah Psichologit or the LAP Department of Mossad operates for its psychological warfare, propaganda and deception operations. The Research Department produces the intelligence in form of daily reports, situation reports, weekly summaries and detailed monthly reports from its different geographical desks .

One of the very important functions of Mossad besides gathering intelligence is the acquisition of military hardware, the assessment of enemy equipment and the enhancement of Israeli capabilities. One of Mossad’s most successful acquisitions was the theft of highly enriched Uranium from an American company, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., located in Apollo, Pennsylvania . This took place in 1965. The president of the company stated that 386.1 pounds of Uranium, enough for at least ten atom bombs, was simply lost ! However, the experts believed that it was transferred to Israel.

2. Functions of Shin Beth: The Arab Affairs Department conducts anti-terrorist operations, maintenance of an index on Arab terrorists and it also performs political subversion. Whereas the non-Arab department, which is divided into Communist and non-Communist sub-sections, is responsible for the functions of penetration of foreign intelligence organizations, diplomatic missions in Israel and interrogation of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe . The Protective Security Branch of Shin Beth functions as the guardian of all the state buildings, embassies, defense related industries, scientific installations, industrial plants and the national airline .

All foreigners are regarded with suspicion by the Shin Beth, regardless of nationality and religion. Informants are recruited from professions of hospitality industry, educational institutions and trade unions with occupations such as bartenders, telephone operators, secretaries, prostitutes and taxi drivers .

3. The Functions of AMAN: The Military Intelligence of Israel produces comprehensive national intelligence estimates for the prime minister and cabinet, which includes communications intercepts, target studies on the contact Arab states in propinquity, and intelligence on the risk of war. AMAN’s Foreign Relations Department maintains liaison with the foreign intelligence organizations, engages in deep reconnaissance and conducts cross-border operations .
4. Air Force Intelligence and the Naval Intelligence: The Air Force Intelligence performs the function of data collection by the means of aerial reconnaissance and signals intelligence using a variety of intelligence equipment which also includes the use of RPVs (remotely piloted vehicles), which are recoverable and recyclable after first use . These devices are excellent for photographic information which can be directly transmitted to the commander’s headquarters who can make immediate decisions regarding troop deployment without sending out the ground reconnaissance.

The Naval intelligence is a small service which provides AMAN on a consultative basis, assessments of the sea-based threats to Israel. Its targeting department is also responsible for coastal studies, naval gunfire missions and beach studies for amphibious assaults .

 

1947. Information obtained by the Jewish-owned Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in its spy operations on US citizens is used by the House Select Committee on Unamerican Activities. Subcommittee Chair Clare Hoffman dismisses the ADL’s reports on suspected communists as hearsay.

1950 John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department’s internal security section notes that the Israeli intelligence service is the second most active in the United States after the Soviets.

1954 A hidden microphone planted by the Israelis is discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv.

1956 Telephone taps are found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attach in Tel Aviv.

1954 “The Lavon Affair”. Israeli agents recruited Egyptian citizens of Jewish descent to bomb Western targets in Egypt, and plant evidence to frame Arabs, in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon is eventually removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion.

1965 Israel illegally obtained enriched uranium from NUMEC Corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, “US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.”)

1967 Israel attacks the USS Liberty, a CIA intelligence- gathering vessel flying a US flag, operating at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, killing 34 crew members.. In 2004, Captain Ward Boston, Senior Legal Counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the attack swears under oath that President Lyndon Johnson ordered the investigation to conclude that the deliberate assault was an “unfortunate accident,” even though the evidence indicates the attack was deliberate. Given the use by Israel of unmarked boats and planes, and the machine-gunning of USS Liberty’s lifeboats, the most likely explanation is that USS Liberty was to be sunk with all hands, with evidence left to frame Egypt for the sinking. This would have dragged the US into the war on Israel’s side.

1970 While working for Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Richard Perle is caught by the FBI giving classified information to Israel. Nothing is done.

1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, is overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. Bryen obtains a lawyer, Nathan Lewin, and the case heads for the grand jury, but is mysteriously dropped. Bryen later goes to work for Richard Perle.

1979 Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tries to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a “Honey Trap”, using a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl.

1984  Jonathan Jay Pollard, a graduate of Stanford University and an employee of the Naval Investigative Service (NIS) surface ships division  was accused and convicted of stealing over a million highly sensitive documents and selling them to the Israeli government. As an example, Pollard stole and copied the latest version of Radio-Signal Notations (RASIN), a 10-volume manual comprehensively detailing America’s global electronic surveillance network. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison on one count of espionage on March 4, 1987. Pollard was later a federal prisoner #09185-016 and was incarcerated at the Butner Federal Correction Complex in Butner, North Carolina.

1985 The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, quoting [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal. The Justice Department does not prosecute.

1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO, was indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86).

1987 April 24 Wall Street Journal headline: “Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won’t be Explored in Detail by Panels”

1992 The Wall Street Journal reports that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc’s top-secret airborne spy-camera system.

1992 Stephen Bryen, caught offering confidential documents to Israel in 1978, was serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant — with security clearance — on exports of sensitive US technology.

1992 “The Samson Option,” by Seymour M. Hersh reports, illicitly obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders, Ari Ben-Menashe recalled: “Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to be discussed with your American counterparts.”

1993. The ADL is caught operating a massive spying operation on critics of Israel, Arab-Americans, the San Francisco Labor Council, ILWU Local 10, Oakland Educational Association, NAACP, Irish Northern Aid, International Indian Treaty Council, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco police. Data collected was sent directly to Israel via their Embassy and in some cases to South Africa. Pressure from Jewish organizations forced San Francisco authorities to drop the criminal case, but the ADL settles a civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum of cash.

1995 The Defense Investigative Service circulated a memo warning US military contractors that ” Israel aggressively collects [ US] military and industrial technology.” The report stated that Israel obtains information using “ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and identification and exploitation of individual frailties” of US citizens.

1996 A General Accounting Office report “Defense Industrial Security: Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense Contractors” found that according to intelligence sources “Country A” (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times, 2/22/96) “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally.” The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the report, “Classified military information and sensitive military technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies of this country.” The report described “An espionage operation run by the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee to obtain US classified military intelligence documents.” The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996) noted that this was “a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided Israel’s LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated 800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information.”

The GAO report also noted that “Several citizens of [Israel] were caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in manufacturing artillery gun tubes.”

1996 An Office of Naval Intelligence document, “Worldwide Challenges to Naval Strike Warfare” reported that ” US technology has been acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology.” Jane’s Defense Weekly (2/28/96) noted that “until now, the intelligence community has not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to China.” The report noted that this “represents a dramatic step forward for Chinese military aviation.” (Flight International, 3/13/96)

1997 An Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, “inadvertently” gives classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).

1997 The Washington Post reports US intelligence has intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis, identified only as Dov, had commented that they may get the letter from Mega, the code name for Israel’s top agent inside the United States.

1997 US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, complains privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents.

1997 Israeli agents place a tap on Monica Lewinsky’s phone at the Watergate and record phone sex sessions between her and President Bill Clinton. The Ken Starr report confirms that Clinton warned Lewinsky their conversations were being taped and ended the affair. At the same time, the FBI’s hunt for Mega is called off. Mega is later revealed to be a top aide to Hillary Clintom

2001 It is discovered that US drug agent’s communications have been penetrated. Suspicion falls on two companies, AMDOCS and Comverse Infosys, both owned by Israelis. AMDOCS generates billing data for most US phone companies and is able to provide detailed logs of who is talking to whom. Comverse Infosys builds the tapping equipment used by law enforcement to eavesdrop on all American telephone calls, but suspicion forms that Comverse, which gets half of its research and development budget from the Israeli government, has built a back door into the system that is being exploited by Israeli intelligence and that the information gleaned on US drug interdiction efforts is finding its way to drug smugglers. The investigation by the FBI leads to the exposure of the largest foreign spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, operated by Israel. Half of the suspected spies have been arrested when 9-11 happens. On 9-11, 5 Israelis are arrested for dancing and cheering while the World Trade Towers collapse. Supposedly employed by Urban Moving Systems, the Israelis are caught with multiple passports and a lot of cash. Two of them are later revealed to be Mossad. As witness reports track the activity of the Israelis, it emerges that they were seen at Liberty Park at the time of the first impact, suggesting a foreknowledge of what was to come. The Israelis are interrogated, and then eventually sent back to Israel. The owner of the moving company used as a cover by the Mossad agents abandons his business and flees to Israel. The United States Government then classifies all of the evidence related to the Israeli agents and their connections to 9-11. All of this is reported to the public via a four part story on Fox News by Carl Cameron. Pressure from Jewish groups, primarily AIPAC, forces Fox News to remove the story from their website. Two hours prior to the 9-11 attacks, Odigo, an Israeli company with offices just a few blocks from the World Trade Towers, received an advance warning via the internet. The manager of the New York Office provided the FBI with the IP address of the sender of the message, which turned out to be located in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, hence could not be further investigated.

2001 The FBI investigated five Israeli moving companies as possible fronts for Israeli intelligence.

2001 The Jewish Defense League’s Irv Rubin arrested for planning to bomb a US Congressman. He was murdered in the LA County Jail and dies before he could be brought to trial.

2001 The Isreali Mossad, in conjunction with senior members of the Bush administration, penetrated a Saudi terrorist group located at Hollywood, Florida, and materially assisted them in preparing for an aerial assault on various significant American targets. The White House was kept fully courant of the Mossad’s actions by the Israeli Embassy personnel in Washington.

2002 The DEA issues a report that Israeli spies, posing as art students, had aggressively been trying to penetrate US Government offices.

2002 Police near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in southern Washington State stop a suspicious truck and detain two Israelis, one of whom is illegally in the United States. The two men were driving at high speed in a Ryder rental truck, which they claimed had been used to “deliver furniture.” The next day, police discovered traces of TNT and RDX military-grade plastic explosives inside the passenger cabin and on the steering wheel of the vehicle. The FBI then announces that the tests that showed explosives were false positives by cigarette smoke, a claim test experts say is ridiculous. Based on an alibi provided by a woman, the case is closed and the Israelis are handed over to INS to be sent back to Israel. One week later, the woman who provided the alibi vanishes.

2003 The Police Chief of Cloudcroft, New Mexico, stops a truck speeding through a school zone. The drivers turn out to be Israelis with expired passports. Claiming to be movers, the truck contains junk furniture and several boxes. The Israelis are handed over to immigration. The contents of the boxers are not revealed to the public. It is later revealed that they contain “extensive documentation” concerning earlier atomic weapon’s testings at nearby Alamagordo, NM

2003 Israel deployed assassination squads into other countries, including the United States. The US Government does not officially protest when they were informed by the Israeli Embassy that these squads were intended to kill known Muslim terrorists possibly operating inside the United States.

2004 Police near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Tennessee stop a truck after a three mile chase, during which the driver throws a bottle containing a strange liquid from the cab. The drivers turn out to be Israelis using fake Ids. The FBI refuses to investigate and, on orders from the Department of Justice in Washington, the Israelis are released.

2004 Two Israelis try to enter Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home to eight Trident submarines. Their truck tests positive for explosives.

2004, The authoritative Jane’s Intelligence Group noted that Israel’s intelligence organizations “have been spying on the US and running clandestine operations since Israel was established.” The former deputy director of counterintelligence at FBI, Harry B. Brandon,  told Congressional Quarterly magazine that “the Israelis are interested in commercial as much as military secrets.”

2005 August 4,2005 a federal grand jury indiocted Lawrence Franklin a former United States Department of Defense employee, on five charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 in that Franklin passed secret information regarding United States policy towards Iran to staff members of  the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Franklin, pled guilty to several espionage-related charges and was sentenced in January 2006 to nearly 13 years of prison but was later released due to pressure from the Israeli government.

2009: October 20, 2009  Stewart Nozette, a scientist who worked for NASA and had a top-level government security clearance, is charged with trying to sell US secrets to Israel after an FBI sting operation. The FBI pretended to be Mossad agents.

2010: A massive ecstasy trafficking operation, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal drugs, manufactured in the Netherlands, to cities across the United States. The drug trafficking operation is also engaged in black market diamond smuggling, using Hassidic Jews as couriers.

2012: The FBI conducted an indepth investigation into the social media Facebook because of allegations the internet system had been thoroughly compromised by the Mossad who had an enormous haul of American’s personal information.

2015: A FBI investigation of massive Israeli penetration of mid-level CIA persona was stopped by order of the President and all records pertaining to the on-going investigation destroyed.

2016: The Department of Justice opened a special investigation into connections between presidential candidate Donald Trump’s son-in-law with top level directors of the Mossad. The Mossad claimed they were aware that the Trump people had been dealing with Russian intelligence and political sources and used this information to persuade the Trump people to support Israeli needs and demands in the event Mr. Trump were elected.

Portions of the funds garnered from the illegal operations, according to sources, were funneled to offshore bank accounts of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then in a vegetative state in an Israeli hospital. Some of these dirty funds were diverted to Sharon’s, and later Netanyahu’s election campaigns. This Israeli mafia apparatus receives technical support via a number of Israeli communications firms, that subcontract with major American telephone companies and government law enforcement agencies.

Spy operations, targeted at mosques and other centers of the Islamic-American communities. According to sources, the goal is to foment nominally “Arab” or “Islamic” labeled violence and terrorism inside the United States, to win Trump Administration support for an Israeli war against the Iranians, Palestinians and other Arabs. These sources believe further, Israeli-abetted terror attacks are to be expected.

Surveillance of U.S. government law enforcement, military and intelligence facilities, to gather profile information for such terrorist attacks, as well as espionage penetration. Organized teams of young, “recently retired” Israeli Defense Force soldiers, often associated with specialty units engaged in electronic signal intercepts and explosive ordinance, have targeted at least 36 domestic U.S. military bases, and many federal law enforcement and intelligence installations. A second feature of this targeting of USG facilities is the recruitment of “a new generation of Jonathan Pollards” (Israeli spies).

 

Secrecy News

From the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

Volume 2018, Issue No. 34

May 3, 2018

HUNDREDS OF CIA EMAIL ACCOUNTS DEEMED PERMANENT RECORDS

In a significant expansion of intelligence record preservation, email from more than 426 Central Intelligence Agency email accounts will now be captured as permanent historical records. A plan to that effect was approved by the National Archives last week.

In 2014, the CIA had said that it intended to preserve the emails of only 22 senior officials, a startlingly low number considering the size and importance of the Agency. The National Archives initially recommended approval of the CIA proposal.

But as soon as the CIA proposal was made public, it generated a wave of opposition from members of Congress and public interest groups.

“In our experience, email messages are essential to finding CIA records that may not exist in other so-called permanent records at the CIA,” wrote Senators Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss in November 2014, when they were chair and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Applying the new proposal to all but the 22 most senior CIA officials means the new policy would allow the destruction of important records and messages of a number of top CIA officials.”

In light of such objections, NARA agreed to reassess the CIA plan. It was officially withdrawn by CIA in 2016.

The new plan, submitted by CIA in July 2017 and approved by NARA on April 24, extends email record preservation much deeper into the CIA bureaucracy, requiring retention of the email of many program managers and office directors that were missing from the original plan.

The newly approved plan identifies 426 accounts subject to capture as permanent records. However, a number of other email accounts covered by the new plan are classified “due to the names of some offices noted on the form as well as the number of accounts in certain categories,” said Meg Phillips, external affairs liaison for NARA. The total number is therefore greater than 426.The CIA’s new plan “resolves the majority of comments or concerns raised during the public comment period” regarding the previous plan, Ms. Phillips said.

 

NATO’S APPROACH TO DEFENSE INNOVATION, & MORE FROM CRS

“In the future, NATO might have to rely as much on its agility and capacity for innovation as it has previously relied on its military technological advantage,” says a new report from the Congressional Research Service that reviews NATO’s response to the current threat environment and the changing technological landscape. See Transatlantic Perspectives on Defense Innovation: Issues for Congress, April 24, 2018.

Other new and updated publications from the Congressional Research Service this week include the following.

Law Enforcement Access to Overseas Data Under the CLOUD Act, CRS Legal Sidebar, May 2, 2018

The Travel Ban Case and Nationwide Injunctions, CRS Legal Sidebar, May 2, 2018

Federal Disaster Assistance After Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Gustav, and Ike, updated May 1, 2018

Issues in International Corporate Taxation: The 2017 Revision (P.L. 115-97), May 1, 2018

CRS Products on North Korea, updated May 1, 2018

 

 

Donald Trump admits to reimbursing lawyer for hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels

The US president has admitted in a series of tweets that his lawyer Michael Cohen had paid a porn actress to keep quiet. But President Donald Trump has denied that campaign fund was used to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence.

May 3, 2018

DW

US President Donald Trump reversed his position on hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels, admitting in a series of tweets Thursday that he reimbursed his personal lawyer for the payment.

But Trump said money from his presidential campaign was not used to pay off the adult-film star — which could have been a violation of federal law.

Trump said he had reimbursed lawyer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 paid to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence over an alleged one-night stand with Trump in 2006. He said nondisclosure agreements were “very common among celebrities and people of wealth.”

Trump added that the agreement “was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations” made regarding an affair.

‘This is not about sex’

Trump had told reporters last month that he did not know about the payment to Daniels or the source of the money.

The president’s tweets on the arrangement with Daniels came after his new legal aide, Rudy Guiliani, said Wednesday Trump reimbursed Cohen for the non-disclosure agreement settled with the porn star.

Guiliani said Trump did not know the details of the arrangement until about 10 days ago. He added that the agreement with Daniels was made for personal reasons in an effort to protect Trump’s family.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has filed two lawsuits against the US president: one to get out of a non-disclosure agreement the second for defamation.

Responding to Trump’s tweets, Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti told US broadcaster MSNBC that Trump had opened himself up to another possible lawsuit for defamation.

“Our case just got exponentially better,” Avenatti said. “This is not about sex … this is about a cover-up.”