August 1, 2003

THE NIGER FORGERY



In all civilized societies forgery is a crime, and when committed by a private person leads to jail sentences of varying durations. Afficionados of mystery stories also know that crimes are solved by considering three factors: Motive, Means, and Opportunity. When it was reported that the attempted sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq, which found its way in a shortened version into the President's State of the Union speech, was a forgery, the question immediately arose in my mind: who had done the forging? Remarkably enough the question has, to the best of my knowledge, never been raised in our country by the media.

The motive for the forgery is obvious. Iraq had to be presented as an imminent threat to the world. A nuclear armed Saddam Hussein was regarded as intolerable and it would have been the obligation of the "only remaining superpower" to remove his regime. The U.S. had, therefore, to be sent to war against Iraq. Now comes the next question who had an overriding interest in the fall of Baghdad?

There were three potential candidates. One was the Iraqi exile group under Ahmed Chalabi, the other the neoconservative civilian group in the Pentagon, who believed that American security was so intimately tied to Israel that the latter country had to be protected by any and all means, and the third was the state of Israel itself. Israel is, since 1948, still officially at war with Iraq. Peace treaties have been signed with Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon but not with Syria and Iraq. Although Israel and Iraq do not share a common border there was fear that Saddam might put his enmity against Assad of Syria aside and their combined armies would indeed represent a considerable threat to Israel. Iraq's military power had to be eliminated and what better way than letting others, and especially the US, do it? So much for motive.

Means required a facility which is used to turning out fake documents and that leaves mainly the various secret service agencies of the world. When one considers motive it is unlikely that the French, the British, Germans, Russians etc. would have forged those documents. It is also unlikely that the CIA would have done so, unless it was a rogue operation. The most likely candidate seemed to be the Mossad, Israel's counterpart to the CIA. Having reached that conclusion, which so far has not yet even been hinted at by the media and since my information about the Mossad did not exceed that of the average educated citizen my interest was piqued to learn more about that organization.

The first stop is, of course, always on the Internet and when typing Mossad into Google up came prominently, "FAS Intelligence Resource Program." It was graced by the picture of a spy, the Israeli flag, and a menorah surrounded by Hebrew characters. The headline was, "Mossad. The Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks [ha-Mossad le-Modiin ule-Tafkidim Meyuhadim]." Since the second page of this short document lists only Israeli sources I regarded it as authoritative. It states that the agency was established by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion in 1951 who gave its primary directive as, "For our state which since its creation has been under siege by its enemies. Intelligence constitutes the first line of defence... we must learn well how to recognize what is going on around us." We are told furthermore that Mossad has eight departments. These are: Collections Department responsible for "espionage under diplomatic as well as unofficial cover;" Political Action and Liaison Department which conducts "political activities and liaison with friendly foreign intelligence services and with nations with which Israel does not have normal diplomatic relations; Special Operations Division - Metsada - "conducts highly sensitive assassination, sabotage, paramilitary, and psychological warfare projects;" LAP (Lohama Psichologit) Department "is responsible for psychological warfare, propaganda and deception operations." In addition there are the Research Department responsible for intelligence production and the Technology Department. The latter is "responsible for development of advanced technologies for support of Mossad operations."

Of greatest interest in the current context was LAP with its psychological warfare, propaganda and deception operations. The vigorous propaganda campaign against Iraq, before and especially after September 11, fits perfectly with LAP's duties. Some of us may remember that our Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, intended to have a similar unit at his disposal in the Pentagon but it was shot down by Congress. On the other hand that does not necessarily mean that the project was totally abandoned since the American people, supposedly for their security, must not know what is being done in their name.

Armed with this information I then went to amazon.com and two books came up prominently. One was Israel's Secret Wars by Ian Black and Benny Morris, the other Gideon's Spies by Gordon Thomas. Since it is bad scientific practice to rely on only one source I ordered both books. These led me to the book by Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad case officer and whistle blower, By Way of Deception. The subsequent information is culled from these three sources and for anyone interested I can cite page numbers.

The Black and Morris book is an extensive treatise of 528 pages and an abundance of notes as well as source references which will be read mainly by seriously minded scholars. The one by Thomas will appeal to the general public. It is shorter and based on firsthand interviews with the movers and shakers in Israel and to some extent the US. Ostrovsky gave his personal story why a convinced Zionist who had joined the Mossad in good faith was turned off by its practices and left the organization. Although all three books cover much of the same material they are definitely worth reading if one really wants to get an appreciation of what is going on inside the Mossad and how its operations have impacted on the United States.

The Motto of the Mossad is, "By way of deception thou shalt do war." As mentioned, Israel is indeed still at war at least with Syria, and with the other neighbors there exists only, what might be called, a "cold peace." Internally there is in addition the war against the Palestinians in the occupied territories which is officially labeled as a war against terrorism. As mentioned previously in these pages for Israel there are no occupied territories only Judea, Samaria and Gaza which constitute part of Eretz Israel promised by God to Jews. It has been said that "all is fair in love and war," or as Black and Morris put it, "A la guerre, comme á la guerre." Thus lies, murders, "false flag" operations, are the stock in trade and the only crime is being caught. The essence is: what is good for Israel is good for the Mossad. As Ostrovsky wrote whenever something happened anywhere the only question was, "'Is it good for Jews, or not?' Forget about policies or anything else. That was the only thing that counted. And depending on the answer, people were called anti-Semites, whether deservedly or not." Since what is good for Jews, or more specifically the policies of the state of Israel, is not necessarily good for America, conflicts have arisen and will continue arise.

The Pollard spy operation, which was called by Black and Morris, "a gold mine," is just one example. It was good for Israel to get secret American documents but, according to Thomas, it was bad for the CIA which found its operations destroyed in South Africa and the Soviet Union when Israel turned some of the material over to these countries. Thomas also wrote, "One note taker at the Sunday cabinet meeting in Jerusalem claimed that 'listening to Admony [Mossad director 1982-1990] was the next best thing to sitting in the Oval Office. We not only knew what was the very latest thinking in Washington on all matters of concern to us, but we had sufficient time to respond before making a decision." Even if this "note taker" had exaggerated the fact remains that a serious breach of security had occurred. There was also wide-spread concern that Pollard had received some of his orders, which demanded specific documents that were not in his ordinary purview, through some other highly placed source in the White House.

This brings up another unique feature, which is specific for the Mossad. The paid staff of case officers, field agents, and informers is rather small because it can rely on a large number of sayanim - helpers. These are Jews who come from all walks of life and for whom the survival of Israel is of prime concern. When they are approached by an agent who paints an imminent threat to their spiritual home in the darkest colors they are only too willing to lend their hand in providing information as well as, on occasion, tangible material. For instance the theft of about one hundred pounds of uranium from the nuclear facility Numec in Apollo, Pennsylvania, to get the Israeli nuclear program started. The motives of the sayanim are beyond reproach. They believe that by helping Israel they help making the world a better place. Unfortunately that is a delusion. But this is the reason why the American Jewish community was so upset when the Pollard case broke because it brought inevitably the question of dual loyalty to the fore. Wolf Blitzer, the respected journalist and TV commentator, discusses this aspect to some extent in Territory of Lies.

While the Pollard affair is widely known in this country, events during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the background of the Iran-Contra scandal have not received much media coverage. Lebanon is important in the present context because our current Iraq dilemma was precipitated by the same misuse of intelligence and wishful thinking as Israel's disaster in Lebanon.

Here is a brief summary of the underlying rationale for the invasion. Palestinian guerillas regularly shot rockets into Galilee from the south of Lebanon and also made hit and run attacks on Israeli citizens. Since there was a civil war in Lebanon at the time, Prime Minister Begin and Defense Minister Sharon decided on an invasion of Lebanon. The ultimate goal was to destroy Muslim power as well as the PLO in that country and establish a friendly Christian Maronite government in Beirut which was expected to make peace with Israel.

There were two invasion plans, "Little Pines," a forty kilometer incursion of the Israeli army to eliminate Palestinian strongholds on the border. This was for public consumption and favored by segments of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). "Big Pines," an advance to the north of Beirut and cutting the Beirut-Damascus highway was Sharon's and Begin's plan. When Sharon was asked how long the army would have to stay in Lebanon "to assure the emergence of a new Phalange dominated regime? Sharon thought six weeks. Saguy [IDF intelligence chief] was less optimistic and believed it would take no less than three months." As it turned out eighteen years had to pass before the last Israeli soldier came home from Lebanon. The withdrawal was ordered by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak to end the guerilla war against his troops and Hizballah has now taken over the PLO's job to harass the Israelis.

The Lebanon invasion was Israel's Vietnam and it was not based merely on faulty information provided by the Intelligence community but on wishful thinking of the politicians. Although the Christians were initially glad to be rid of the PLO, they soon became disenchanted. They were after all Lebanese and their desires did not necessarily coincide with those of Israel. In addition the Israelis soon found themselves involved with very unhappy Shiites who still provide cover for Hizballah. This seems to be exactly the scenario which played itself out prior to our invasion of Iraq and how long we will have to stay there fighting a smoldering insurrection only the future can tell.

But the Lebanon invasion also showed the split between Israeli and American interests. Israel wanted peace with Lebanon so that it could concentrate on eliminating the threat to the settlers in the occupied territories, which it intended to retain. President Reagan, on the other hand, wanted a global peace arrangement which included an Israeli withdrawal from them Although this would have been in the long term interest of Israel as well as America it was anathema to Begin and led to the disastrous truck bombing of the Beirut Headquarter of the Marines' Expeditionary Force in 1983, causing the loss of 241 American lives. Mossad has excellent spy services and can infiltrate any organization it wants. Israelis are multiethnic, speak several languages and can blend with the population of any country without undue fear of sticking out. It was known to the Mossad that a Syrian sponsored group had planned a major suicide attack with a blue Mercedes truck. Since they did not know its final destination they were shadowing it. The question was how much to tell the Americans about it. A decision was made at the highest level that the Americans should be given only, as Ostrovsky wrote, "the general warning, a vague notice that someone may be planning an operation against them. But this was so general and commonplace, it was like sending a weather report; unlikely to raise any particular alarm or prompt increased security precautions. Admony, in refusing to give the Americans specific information on the truck, said 'No we're not here to protect the Americans, They are a big country. Send only the regular information.' At the same time, however, all Israeli installations were given the specific details and warned to watch out for a truck matching the description of the Mercedes." The purpose was obvious: American public opinion had to be inflamed against Arabs.

This failure to share vital information with one's benefactor and most important ally played itself out also in the Beirut hostage crisis. Among the group of Western hostages was the CIA Station Chief, William Buckley, and the US was desperately trying to get him back. Although Prime Minister Peres assured President Reagan of his full cooperation the Mossad played by its own rules. No specifics were provided and the Americans were led down the garden path. As Ostrovsky wrote, "Many people in the office said the Mossad were going to regret it someday. But the majority were happy. The attitude was, 'Hey, we showed them. We're not going to be kicked around by the Americans. We are the Mossad. We are the best.'"

Had the Mossad indeed cooperated fully the Iran-Contra affair might have been avoided. While the US was supplying weapons to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war the Israelis were busy shipping some of our weapons to Iran. The logic was impeccable. The longer the war lasted the more exhausted the combatants became and the better it was for Israel. On July 29, 1986, with the hostage crisis still unresolved, then Vice-President Bush met secretly with Prime Minister Peres' Chief Security advisor, Amiram Nir, at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Ostrovsky wrote, "Nir told Bush the Israelis 'activated the channel. We gave a front to the operation, provided a physical base, provided aircraft.'" Bush was also told, in contrast to President Reagan's later assertions, that the Israelis were dealing "'with the most radical elements [in Iran because] we have learned they can deliver and the moderates can't.'" When the Iran-Contra affair became known Congress started hearings. Nir, who was the most important witness, had promised to give full testimony which would have severely hurt the American as well as Israeli government. This was not allowed to come to pass and he supposedly died in an unexplained Cessna crash in the wilderness of Mexico. Ostrovsky speculated that he may have been bought off, had plastic surgery to alter his facial features, and lived happily for ever after.

This brings us to the present and the Niger forgery. Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas reported in the July 28, 2003 edition of Newsweek that it may have started with a break-in at the Niger embassy in Rome on January 2, 2001. There was nothing significant stolen, "but someone had apparently rifled through embassy papers, leaving them strewn about the floor." Some months later the Italian intelligence service received a stack of official looking documents from an African diplomat. They were signed by officials of the Niger government and purported to show that Saddam Hussein wanted to buy some 500 tons of pure uranium which can be used for making atomic weapons. The Italians notified the British and the CIA. As it turned out the documents, which consisted of letters dated from July to October 2000, were crude forgeries. They were known as such at least a year and a half before the famous 16 word sentence was uttered by the President. Now the blame is being shifted to the British and most recently the French but who fed it to them in the first place? It was probably the Mossad, which is known for its "False Flag" operations and had the most to gain. For Bush the information, regardless of its provenance and veracity, was icing on the cake in his determination to go to war. But why would the Mossad engage in such a clumsy fabrication when it surely has the means to do a better job?

For the answer to that question we have to turn to the previously mentioned highly traveled and respected reporter Gordon Thomas of Gideon's Spies. In my search for the truth I had found some minor discrepancies between his book and that of Black and Morris. Since he does have a website, Globe-Intel, I contacted him and found him most forthcoming. My first letter was immediately answered and so were the subsequent ones. I am, therefore, happy to publicly express my thanks because such cooperation is far from commonplace. He told me that the Niger documents came from the Mossad and were fed to MI6 (British intelligence) via Rome and when they received them "The documents were originally taken as 'the kind of stuff you would expect with sloppy Third World people.'" In this way the Mossad could cover its tracks and as we know the operation achieved its purpose.

Unfortunately there is more and we are not likely to hear the truth from official channels. There is good reason to believe that the Mossad had some fore-knowledge about the impending 9/11 attack, but failed to share all its information with the CIA and FBI analogous to the Beirut truck bombing and the Buckley capture. A radicalization of the American public against Arabs and the Muslim world in general is obviously good for Israel but is it good for America? Congress is not likely to get the full truth because the White House stonewalls and the documents which are handed over are in part censored.

There is, however, another reason, apart from elections where the Jewish vote is regarded as vital, why the role of the Mossad must remain unmentioned. I believe that we are heavily dependent on "The Institute," as it is also referred to, in the current Iraq war, which is far from over. Only Israelis can readily mingle with Arabs, pose as Iraqis and get information which is not necessarily available to the CIA, or military intelligence in the field, because our guys simply lack the necessary language skills. Even if they were to know Arabic they would not be able to communicate in the local patois and would become sitting ducks. This does not apply to Israelis but since they are interested first and last in Israel, as they should be, we may not necessarily be able to trust the information we receive. This is the bind into which our troops have been placed but it is not likely to be debated publicly.



When one reads the mentioned books one feels that one is staring into an abyss. Regardless of motives, the means are reprehensible and violate all strictures of human decency. In essence we are paying for government supported Mafia operations. The fact that it is not only the Mossad which behaves in this manner but to some extent all the so called "Intelligence" services of the world makes the situation even more grim. This is also another example of the misuse of language. What the spies provide is not intelligence but information. The difference is vital because it would require intelligent people to evaluate this mass of data. But intelligence which is not biased by wishful thinking is a difficult commodity for anyone, let alone politicians and their supporters in the media.

As mentioned the full truth of the antecedents to 9/11, from which all else flowed, is currently being hidden. But "We the People" and especially the families of the victims have a right to know what really happened. Congress should not tolerate stonewalling by the administration and if key documents are not forthcoming they should hold the responsible people, even if it were the President, in contempt. Continued secrecy and cover-ups do not serve the American people. Deception, whether willful or inadvertent, needs to be shunned. When mistakes are made they have to be publicly admitted to, common decency demands it. But regardless of who was behind 9/11, the Niger forgery, and the Iraq invasion the major fact that has emerged is that trust in our government and the media has been eroded. We no longer know whom we can trust and that is the death knell for a free society. Without trust we will create a police state and we will end up not much different from the regimes we are so eager to topple. That is the tragedy of today's events and this is why people of good will need to speak out.

The true revelations will have to come from the inside of the "secret services," including our own. This why I shall give Victor Ostrovsky the penultimate word. He was there, got disgusted and tells us why. In the Foreword he wrote, "It is out of love for Israel as a free and just country that I am laying my life on the line by so doing, facing up to those who took it upon themselves to turn the Zionist dream into the present-day nightmare." In the Epilogue one finds,

"The Intifada and resultant breakdown of moral order and humanity are a direct result of the kind of megalomania that characterizes the operation of the Mossad. That's where it all begins. This feeling that you can do anything you want to whomever you want for as long as you want because you have the power. . . . It's a disease that began with the Mossad and has spread through government and down through much of Israeli society. There are large elements inside Israeli society who are protesting this slide, but their voices are not being heard. And with each step down, it gets easier to repeat and more difficult to stop.

The strongest curse inside the Mossad that one katsa [case officer] can throw at another is the simple wish: 'May I read about you in the paper.'

It might be the only way to turn things around."

Although these words were published in 1990 the passage of time has made them only truer. Now the disease has spread to our government. Unless we face up to it we will go the way of the Israeli state: disliked around the world and embroiled in perpetual warfare with concomitant deceptions. This is not what the founders of our republic had in mind.
 
 
 
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