An ill wind blows between US and Israeli intelligence over attack on Iran
DEBKAfile
July 29, 2012
The acrimony reached a nadir with an unusually detailed Association Press report on July 28 quoting anonymous sources as stating, “The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency’s New East Division,” – the group that oversees spying across he Middle East.
Prime Minister Binyamin’s Office reviled its content, including allegations of Mossad intrusions of US officials’ homes, as “a lying report.”
This leak had two objectives, says DEBKAfile:
1. To deter US presidential candidate Mitt Romney from using his visit to Israel Sunday and Monday July 29-30 to promise, if elected in November, to review Jonathan Pollard’s life sentence for spying for Israel, which all previous US presidents have refused to do at the CIA’s behest. It has been suggested that he may be considering going on record with this pledge to win Jewish votes.
2. To hit back at the Israel watchers dogging the footsteps of CIA agents planted in a widely-flung undercover network for picking up any clues that Israeli preparations for a unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear program are moving into operational phase.
Although American and Israeli officials habitually stress the commonalty of the two government’s decisions on Iran – and top US officials are again turning up in Israel every few days – President Barack Obama still can’t be sure that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak won’t take him off-guard by springing an attack at a date earlier than the one under discussion between them.
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