(Washington Post) David Ignatius - What adds a sharp edge to the Bush II ideological debate is the fact that the FBI is continuing an investigation of AIPAC, which, like the neoconservatives, is strongly supportive of Israel. The investigation appears to have touched some prominent neoconservatives who are friendly toward AIPAC. Journalist Edwin Black in a Dec. 31 article in the Forward described an apparent effort by the FBI to use the Pentagon official whose contacts with AIPAC triggered the investigation, Larry Franklin, in an unsuccessful "sting" operation to draw Richard Perle into passing information to Ahmed Chalabi. A prominent former government official with access to highly classified information told me this week that he was quizzed in late January by two FBI agents about his meetings with Steve Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues. He said he told the agents that he had never given Rosen classified information and that Rosen had never asked for it. The FBI investigation seemed, to this former official, to be largely a "fishing expedition." I'm told that more than a half-dozen officials in the Bush administration who are apparently suspected of leaking classified information to AIPAC have had to retain defense lawyers.
2005-02-08 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive