(Jerusalem Post)Janine Zacharia - FBI agents used Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin to draw two senior AIPAC officials who already knew him into accepting what he described to them as "classified" information, reliable government and other sources intimately familiar with the investigation say. The information claimed that Iranians were monitoring and planning to kidnap and kill Israelis operating in Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, though it is unclear whether the claim was real or bogus. At the FBI's request, Franklin initiated contact with the AIPAC pair and told them that he needed to discuss a ticking-bomb situation. The FBI hoped that the AIPAC pair would be so troubled by the apparent life-and-death content of the information from Franklin as to risk a breach of U.S. espionage statutes and transfer the information to Israel, which is precisely what happened.
2004-12-06 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive