US leak of Zarqawi letter riles Israelis

[ECH1969]

ISRAELI military intelligence officials have accused President George W Bush’s administration of undermining their attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq by revealing the contents of a secret letter written by Osama Bin Laden’s second-in-command, writes Uzi Mahnaimi.

Israel passed the letter — in which Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his Middle East strategy to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq — to Washington last October on condition of strict anonymity. Israeli officials were dismayed, however, when John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, made it available in both English and its original Arabic on his office web site.

Israeli intelligence sources said officials who had worked on “Operation Tiramisu” inside Iraq took emergency steps to protect their sources, but it was not clear how successful they had been in averting the damage to their intelligence network.

They said Bush’s indiscretion had undone months of painstaking effort.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2125730,00.html

[xchrom]

1. a little leak here, a little there...

i'll bet their not all that ticked off.

[ewagner]

2. How many times

has the Bush administration done this?

They are burning their friends as well as their enemies....they aren't just evil they are hopelessly incompetent.

[mom cat]

4. Or fiendishly super competent at disrupting exposure of their black opps.

and undermining investigations that are too close to finding out the truth such as the outing of Brewster Jennings, the foiled attempts to catch Osama, the blocks to investigating the "so called" 9-11 terrorists. We would be well advised not to underestimate their cunning in twisting reality.

[Marie26]

20. Agree

They seem to always come out w/a convenient Al-Zawahiri letter when they most need it. I started to think these were fake because Scott McClellan would always eagerly jump on the letter during the next press conference. It's kind of like the "new Bin Laden tapes" that periodically show up. Nothing like using a dead man to make your case - there's no danger of contradiction.

2005 CNN article - "Al-Zawahiri letter under scrutiny
Independent analysts differ on authenticity of U.S. intercept" -http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/19/take.letter/index.html

[0007]

3. Sounds like more bull to me!

[newswolf56]

5. Once again, further proof that Bush's real purpose in the Middle East...

is to maintain and expand Muslim theocracy: part of a much-longer-range plan -- authored in large measure by Grover Norquist -- to protect capitalism by dividing the world between Christian and Islamic theocracies.

[rodeodance]

6. The letter gets used by the RW over and over as talking points!

They said Bush’s indiscretion had undone months of painstaking effort.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[grytpype]

8. They've done this before...

They blew the cover of a Pakistani mole inside al Qaeda with similar results. Incompetent.

[MrPrax]

9. Probably a Fake...

The Israeli protests are calculated to lend credibility to a forgery.

[Ilsa]

10. How typical for the Imperial Blivet.

Bush* makes up his own intel as he goes along to suit his nefarious purposes.

[bemildred]

11. Bullshit.

With all this concern about secrecy, they decided to complain about in the Times?
:rofl::rofl:

[lovuian]

12. Leaker in Chief

maybe he doesn't want them to infiltrate their organization...

[pinniped]

13. Al-Zarqawi articles are automatically filed in the Onion folder.

* then referred to it during his weekly address. “The Al-Qaeda letter points to Vietnam as a model,” the preznut declared. “Al-Qaeda believes that America can be made to run again.

This propaganda is getting too damm obvious.

How FN convenient for * to cite this letter to try and make Merkans change their positions about his stupid war.

See, they want us to run so we won't run!

Dumbasses.

[cantstandbush]

14. So Israel IS operating in Iraq. That's the major point here.

Israel operating in and around holy sites of Islam. Makes one wonder who really is behind those mosque attacks. This could be a bigger revelation than one might think.

[SOS]

17. In 2004 Seymour Hersh reported

this in a New Yorker article:

"Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel's view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel's clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports.

A senior C.I.A. official acknowledged in an interview last week that the Israelis were indeed operating in Kurdistan. The C.I.A. official added that the Israeli presence was widely known in the American intelligence community."

[cantstandbush]

19. Also, the Israelis were inside Iraq long before 9/11. n/t

[HuffleClaw]

15. but but! if the president says it, its NOT a leak! ! !

so claim the pundits. ;-) no fooling, THAT is the latest spin on 'leaks'.

[Behind the Aegis]

16. As long as Israeli information gatherers are killed...

...few will care.

[IndianaGreen]

18. Israel is justified in not trusting the United States

perhaps it is time to take a second look at the Pollard case, the underlying basis of which was that the US was withholding intelligence information from Israel that was vital to Israel's security.