Potential big story: Wolfowitz and Perle being investigated for espionage?

[lancdem]

I've been emailing investigative journalist Wayne Madsen about all these sudden stories in the conservative press about the Plame case that seem to be preemptive strikes against possible indictments. I also thought the Berger leak might fit into this.

He agreed, then told me this: The FBI is investigating Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. for espionage, but the story hasn't come out yet. If this is true, I'll bet the Kerry campaign has gotten wind of it. Nice ace in the hole, huh?

BTW, I wonder if this is the story Josh Marshall has been pursuing?

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Many of us around here

are convinced that Perle and Wolfowitz have been working for the Israeli government for a very long time. It is apparent that their first loyalty is to Sharon and the Likud and the US second.

Too bad it's taken this long for the FBI to start to figure that out.

[Fleshdancer]

2. ooooohh, I hope this is true

I really do want to believe in karma but it's been so hard to have faith in the concept for the last 4 years.

[asjr]

8. I think karma took a long vacation--hopefully not to Crawford.

unless it is bad karma.

[Jackpine Radical]

34. There is no good karma, there is no bad karma.

There is only karma.

[calimary]

17. Oh, man, do I know how you feel!

You try to teach your kids that crime doesn't pay and that cheaters never prosper and that the good guys win. And then the bushies take power and turn your lessons into so much used toilet paper.

I keep wondering - WHEN will this end? WHEN??!?!??! And I, too, am sick of waiting for karma to start taking hold.

[xocolatl]

39. I hope it *isn't* true!

because if it is we are all collectively fucked.

[charlyvi]

3. Do you think it's Chalabi?

Their willingness to believe everything C told them, while also selling them out to Iran? Since Iran now seems to be the state most culpable viz a viz state sponsored terrorism/Sept 11 (aside from Afghanistan). It seems to me that bush* gave Iran everything it wanted without them saying they wanted it. Hussein is now gone, which they wanted as Saddam worked as a buttress against them. I think Chalabi's info had a great deal to do with us invading the wrong country; everything we said prior to invading Iraq seems to be true of Iran on the face of things. Oh boy!!! Were these white men stupid or what?

[maggrwaggr]

14. You should replace "Iran" with "Pakistan" in your assessment

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/789042.cms

[charlyvi]

18. Yes, Pakistan too

But Iran had Saddam right next door--now we have effectively eliminated him for them. It's amazing, isn't it, how many enemies we have helped with our ME Democratization enterprise? Iran, Al Qaeda, North Korea; thw whole "Axis of Evil" should write thank you notes to bushco* We've eliminated Iran's worst enemy, recruited unknown thousands of terrorists for Al Qaeda, and we're too weak now militarily to do anything about North Korea.

[maggrwaggr]

19. yup, but * is "keeping us safer"

It's an extraordinary victory for propagandists.

Why hasn't Chalabi been arrested, is what I want to know? Why is he still a free man?

[maggrwaggr]

20. and don't forget -- * showed the classified war plans to Prince Bandar!

all these cases of garden-variety TREASON and the guy is still allowed to stay in office and run for another term.

It's time to bring the real terrorists to justice.

[charlyvi]

22. I read either in the NYT or WP

Sorry, don't rememeber which, that the Chalabi raid was payback by the CIA/Army to Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, with White House and Paul Bremer's implicit approval. Perle, Feith then visited Condi after the raid to express their disapproval. Apparantly, didn't get them anywhere. Army doesn't like civilian Pentagon leadership, CIA doesn't like Feith's shadow intelligence dept. Talk about being caught with your pants down, huh?

[Ms. Clio]

37. Nothing they say is ever true--not about Iraq, and not about Iran

Don't be so "willing to believe."

[iconoclastic cat]

4. Wow!

I wonder when/if it will come out!

[HamdenRice]

5. Wearing too many hats ...

Because Israel is such a close ally officially of the US, it is easy for people like Perle to work with their intelligence agencies through "think tanks" and "educational institutions" and not be accused of espionage. It all gets very murky when the Pentagon, which Perle worked for part-time, has close ties to Isreali intelligence; Perle works for Israeli-American think tanks which also employ Israeli military and intelligence officials for "educational" purposes and sabbaticals; and they are all discussing sensitive policy issues.

Whether someone like Perle gets investigated or accused is really a political, not criminal, matter. It's all so ambiguous -- it's when the lense, through which the FBI or Justice Dept. views Perle's actions, changes from seeing close collaboration in policy and educational discussions through official, charitable and educational institutions -- to the passing of classified material.

[shraby]

12. I disagree with your premise that

when someone like Perle gets investigated it's political, not criminal. Someone leaked the information to Iran that we had cracked their communications code. That's a criminal, treasonous act, and it was directly connected to Chalabi and the people in our government who were connected to Chalabi. The need to investigate those people in order to discover who leaked the information is paramount and politics are irrelevant to the investigation.


edited for spleing

[merh]

13. I don't understand what you mean by this statement.

"Whether someone like Perle gets investigated or accused is really a political, not criminal, matter."

Is that a defense of the investigation similiar to the stance of the GOP during the iran/contra investigation? (It's all politics, nothing to see here!) How can the "sharing" of classified intelligence information not be criminal?

[HamdenRice]

24. By political I mean ...

First, there is a difference between alleged leaks of information to Iran and leaks to Israel. I was responding to Doyouwonder's post that Perle has long been suspected of too close ties to Israel -- even espionage on behalf of Israel -- not to later posts about Iran.

What I am saying is this: A lot of behavior of foreign policy insiders is ambiguous. An administration may encourage an official or semi official to "leak" information to officials or semi-officials of a foreign government. The leaker has a certain amount of political cover under those circumstances. If that political cover is blown, then the person is prosecuted.

Perle, for example, was a member of several think tank institutions funded by Israeli intelligence -- all above board and "academic." Perle received compensation from this think tank. In this think tank, members have policy seminars. Views and information are discussed.

Meanwhile, Perle is advising the Pentagon. Perle presses some of the policy preferences of Israeli intelligence on his colleagues at the Pentagon.

Is Perle a well connected, semi-academic "information professional" who gets "smart" by discussing policy issues with friendly foreign governments and then presenting that wisdom to the Pentagon?

Or is Perle a paid agent of a foreign government -- whose pay has been laundered through a Mossad front organization -- who has "penetrated" the Pentagon, and wrongly influenced it on behalf of a foreign government?

There really is no one answer to this question.

Most people think of crime as cut and dried -- a person either committed the crime or he didn't. I'm a lawyer. Lawyers don't think of many crimes that way because they are not defined in law that way.

In the Perle scenario I just outlined, there really isn't an answer to the question, is this a crime. While I don't know the exact statutory language involved, more than likely, whether he committed a crime will depend in part on his subjective state of mind -- whether he had criminal intent. And psychologically, that is an unknowable question. Perle himself probably cannot honestly answer that question.

So the purely empirical, postivist answer to the question of whether a crime was committed, is whether he is prosecuted and convicted. Whether he is prosecuted is based on "prosecutorial discretion" -- whether the Attorney General decides to prosecute. This is a political decision -- not in the narrow sense that Karl Rove instructs Ashcroft who instructs some assistant US attorney; but in the sense of whether Perle is vulnerable politically and how Washington "group think" perceives Perle.

[merh]

29. I understand what you mean now. Thank you for clearing that up for me...

The "state of mind" you reference or a "good faith defense" (as afforded to defendants charged with mail fraud) is exactly why they leaked the Berger investigation to the press. (imho)

Berger accidentally or inadvertently removed documents, in violation of policy or regulations, regulations he should have been aware of because of the office he held during the Clinton admin. The defense that he did not mean to remove the documents, that it was an accident, may be appropriate in his circumstance.

However, it is the "didn't mean to" or "no intent" position that *&Co. hope to use to their advantage. Yes, the Berger story masks other events, takes front page, but also, when it becomes public that members of the admin are being investigated or have been indicted for intelligence offenses, their defense may well be "we didn't mean to" "it was an accident" "thought everyone knew she was an agent", et cetera.

The intent or lack thereof becomes an accepted defense and the pollution of jury poll (the public) begins.

I agree that whether Perle is prosecuted is purely a political decision. That occurs more times than anyone would like to admit with prosecutions.

[spotbird]

25. Not that he did it through think tanks but Jonathan Pollard uses

the "buuttt we're allies" defense in every interview. Secrets are secrets.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

31. Whether someone like Perle gets investigated or accused is really a politi

Whether someone like Perle gets investigated or accused is really a political, not criminal, matter.<<

Unless of course Clinton is in office... or someone of his ilk that the repugs dislike in an extreme manner (cuz he gave some of theirs to some of them... not) but we don't like to call that sort of behavior from the other side of the aisle "unpatriotic".... we just don't do that.

A man once told me that if we "redistributed" all the wealth so that most everyone had a nice nest egg.... in 6 months or so... it would all be back where it was to begin with.

First off... "me" and while this money was all seeking its rightful home in the bank accounts of the rich and famous.... just what would be the impact on the economy?? Just who is the purchasing engine that drives the economy in the first place???

Second... as a people who comprise 5% of the world population... and who consume 35-45% of its natural resources... someone somewhere... (actually several someones and somewheres) MUST GET THE SHORT END. It is so incredibly plain to me.... this is a highly unbalanced situation... and the sooner it changes... the better... waste not want not grandma always used to say.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1887208046/qid=1090699398/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/103-5707106-7371805?v=glance&s=books&n=50784
>>From Publishers Weekly
This well-documented, apocalyptic tome describes the global spread of corporate power as a malignant cancer exercising a market tyranny that is gradually destroying lives, democratic institutions and the ecosystem for the benefit of greedy companies and investors. Korten (Getting to the 21st Century) points out his conservative roots and business credentials?and then proceeds to finger such classic conspiracy-theory scapegoats as the Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations as the planning agents of the new world economic order he decries. Korten, founder of the People-Centered Development Forum, prescribes a reordering of developmental priorities to restore local control and benefits. Suggested reforms include shifting tax policies to punish greed and reward social responsibility, placing a 100% reserve requirement on demand deposits at banks and closing the World Bank, which he claims encourages indebtedness in nations that can't afford it.<<

[liveoaktx]

6. Related to this?

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040525-051041-2200r

But in the haste to deflect blame onto others, and to survive the internecine wars of the Washington bureaucracy, there is now a hunt for scapegoats. The first designated target is Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, once the Pentagon's favored intelligence source and later their chosen man to assume the mantle of power in Baghdad.

Chalabi is an easy target. Convicted of massive bank fraud in Jordan, and the purveyor of at best over-optimistic (and at worst, deliberately misleading) intelligence, he is now pilloried on the cover of Newsweek as "Our con man in Iraq." He is widely accused of passing intelligence material to Iran, and even of having been an Iranian agent of influence since the 1980s. (On the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Chalabi's hatred of Saddam Hussein -- and the geographic fact of Iran's looming presence alongside Iraq -- would explain some of his contacts with Iran.

But the real target goes beyond Chalabi. The hunt is on, in the Republican Party, in Congress, in the CIA and State Department and in a media which is being deluged with leaks, for Chalabi's friends and sponsors in Washington -- the group known as the neo-cons.

In particular, the targets seem to be Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the former assistant secretary (in Reagan's day) Richard Perle, Vice President Dick Cheney's national security aide Scooter Libby, and the National Security Council's Middle East aide Elliott Abrams. The leaking against them -- from sources who insist on anonymity, but some CIA and FBI veterans -- is intense. Some of the sources are now private citizens, making a good living through business connections in the Arab world.

[PDittie]

7. They are rumored to be Israeli dual-nationals

Perle, Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Dov Zakheim, Pentagon comptroller.

Along with Ari Fleischer.

http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=Wolfowitz+Israel+dual+national&ei=UTF-8&n=20&fl=0&xargs=0&pstart=1&b=21&u=www.johnworldpeace.com/e021203c.htm&w=wolfowitz+israel+dual+national&d=09190BAFDC&icp=1

[Hoping4Change]

10. What about Mr Axis of Evil, David Frum?

[seemslikeadream]

23. Remeber the first Plame thread Hoping4Change

espionage, I think I might have mention that.

[Hoping4Change]

32. I might have missed it or it could be that I forgot, You know its

hard to keep track of all the crap Bushco creates.:argh:

[TacticalPeek]

9. Many will be touched by the OSP business, a primer of perfidy.

I imagine beaucoup violations, multiple criminal conspiracies, testimony about 'country #3', etc.

No 'failure of imagination' here.

[Stephanie]

11. Would this be the leaks to Chalabi?

Someone had to provide him the information he gave to Iran. And Perle and Chalabi go back to school days together.

[TacticalPeek]

16. Or, we could play "Who's the drunk?".

Bourbon or burgundy?

Perle was tres quick to declare defeat and sound retreat. Like over a year ago, from Paris or someplace? :)

Maybe he saw value in letting certain lying dogs continue in repose?

[loudsue]

15. "I wonder if this is the story Josh Marshall has been pursuing? "

I wonder the same thing, lancdem!! This is/would be HUGE!! And Wayne Madsen should KNOW!!! Good source!

There were too many Israeli "spy" stories going on around 9/11 that it is difficult to say "all of them were just anti-Semitic smears". I wonder if this hasn't been behind a lot of WHY our government's policies have been stirring up such hornets' nests.... everything the domestic neocons have done has perfectly dove-tailed with what the Israeli neocons have desired.

This is NOT making Israeli CITIZENS safer!!! A goal I think most of us share! Most of us want ALL the citizens of the world to be safe and secure!!!

Sharon's actions, along with the bush administration's actions, are making Israeli citizens AND American citizens MUCH LESS SAFE!! Not to mention the safety of their neighbors, the Palestinian families.

The world needs a good shake-up to get back on the track of peace. Wolfowitz and Pearle are PNACers who are NOT on the track of peace!!!! Putting them away would be a big service to the world.

:kick::kick::kick:

[hang a left]

21. I will believe it when I see it.

I am sorry. All the rumors about Plame indictments and now espionage investigations just piss me off. I get all my hopes up and nothing happens. Just like every other fucking scandal we have been through for almost 4 long friggin years now. I am sick of rumor and innuendo and spin and people talking out of their ass.

[spotbird]

26. I feel your pain.

They can get away with anything.

[G_j]

28. agreed, & hoping Ashcroft's FBI is gonna expose the truth?

lol

[bpilgrim]

33. remember how loooong it took to get kenny-boy indicted

the BIGGER they are the harder and longer they take to real in.

but i hear ya, it is certainly taking waaaaay tooooo loooong for me personally as well ;->

peace

[grasswire]

27. I just have to ask again...

....does Madsen know that you are posting his musings in a public forum, using his name?

Ya know, you could run the risk of exposing him to potential libel litigation if you aren't very, very circumspect in what you share from your conversations with him.

[lancdem]

41. He's a journalist

If he were worried about libel, he wouldn't be giving out names, even in emails.

[wicket]

30. kick!

[Disturbed]

36. "Why hasn't Chalabi been arrested?"

Both Perle and Chalabi whined that Tenet was after them. Tenet resigned? It may be that Bush told Tenet to lay off of Chalabi and Tenet refused and Bush fired him right then. Tenet boot clicked the Bush Junta regarding WMDs sitting right behind Powell as blatant lies were spewed at the UN. When V. Plame was outed that may have been the last straw for Tenet after the OSP, Cheney, Rumsfailed et al nuetered the CIA. There is a definite war going on between the Admin. the CIA and the Military vs Rumsfailed.

War Crimes have been commited on a grand scale and also domestic crimes, the violations and subversion of The Constitution. The majority of Congress, mainly Repubs but also Dems are aware of most of this. TheY are COMPLICIT AND FRIGHTENED!!!

[AP]

35. Say they are, it's remarkable the access they have to the media --

you can't go three days without hearing some "legitimate" journalist on the Diane Rheme show, or on some stupid cable show obviously parroting Perle and Wolfowitz's version of reality.

[napi21]

38. Well, Wolfie, Perle, and DeLay all under investigation.

Maybe we can add Cheney too. I hope something comes out about these creeps in...maybe second week of Oct.

[knight_of_the_star]

40. This will hurt

I'll have to burn the announcement of the indictments onto DVD when they are brodcasted on CNN.

[wicket]

42. kick!

:kick:

[Kool Kitty]

43. Please, please let this be true.

So much corruption, and nothing seems to sick to any of these men. Please, just let something come out that will stop them.