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Home Front: WoT
US sees Israel as main spy threat
2012-07-29
Dear Reader, why d'you suppose the CIA leaked this just now?
[Hurriyet Daily News] The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.

The incident, described by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel.

This means the CIA believes that U.S. national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.
It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched. In all the cases, the U.S. government believes Israel's security services were responsible.

Such meddling underscores what is widely known but rarely discussed outside intelligence circles: Despite inarguable ties between the U.S. and its closest ally in the Middle East and despite statements from U.S. politicians trumpeting the friendship, U.S. national security officials consider Israel to be, at times, a frustrating ally and a genuine counterintelligence threat.

In addition to what the former U.S. officials described as intrusions in homes in the past decade, Israel has been implicated in U.S. criminal espionage cases and disciplinary proceedings against CIA officers and blamed in the presumed death of an important spy in Syria for the CIA during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency's Near East Division, the group that oversees spying across the Middle East, according to current and former officials. Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies. This means the CIA believes that U.S. national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.
But the Times of Israel quotes Prime Minister Netanyahu as saying flatly the Ay Pee's report is false:
The Prime MinisterÂ’s Office on Saturday denied the content of an Associated Press article suggesting Israeli agents spy on their American colleagues stationed in Israel and constitute a counterintelligence threat to US interests.

In an unusually brief SMS message to Israeli journalists, the media advisers of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: “In response to the report about the CIA, the Prime Minister’s Office states that this a false report.”
Posted by:trailing wife

#17  What was that equipment doing at the station chief's house? Did he have Marines guarding the place? If not he needs to STFU. I think I would have canned his ass.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2012-07-29 15:43  

#16  this particular news item looks like some sort of political cat fight at a high level. It's above the daily game - played by agents and stations chiefs.
Posted by: Raider   2012-07-29 14:31  

#15  Quite so Raider, the 'Nash equilibrium' holds little application within the intelligence community, nor should it. You make your moves based on the benefits which they are anticipated to produce for your organization, not phueching someone elses. If external positives are derived, those are carefully chalked up and used as credits or markers to be held, or potentially called in at some future date.
Posted by: Besoeker   2012-07-29 13:23  

#14  so ... the Mossad does - what the Mossad does. Is anybody surprised about this at all? That is the world of intelligence ... you don't trust anybody. I can't see the point of these stories.

Maybe the CIA station chief should have left some milk and cookies in his secret box in his house. Along with a note: "Hey Mossad - GOT MILK?"

Hahahahahaha !!!
Posted by: Raider   2012-07-29 10:27  

#13  So what! This was just posted in the news so Romney will have to give opinion on it as he returns. Everyone spies on everyone, do ya think we don't spy on them? Or Englad, or France, or Canada? This was just another politically aimed leak to try and sway a few people and make Romney look bad.
Posted by: 49 pan   2012-07-29 09:47  

#12  Israel is out for Israel, as the US should be out for the US. I should hope we are spying on them also. And I would take it as a compliment if they considered us their main spy threat. But something tells me that might not be the case.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2012-07-29 09:26  

#11  "If you were Israeli would you trust Obama?"

Hell, no. I'm American and I don't trust Bambi (except to screw me over in favor of his cronies every chance he gets or manufactures).
Posted by: Barbara   2012-07-29 08:42  

#10  Not much different than all the Euros who expected the Americans to suffer a devastating nuclear war to protect them. Considering some of the actions of those Euros from '48 through '00, they yet considered themselves 'allies'.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2012-07-29 08:28  

#9  ...Well, honestly - if you were an Israeli, would you trust our government right now? They probably think that we're prepared to fight Iran down to the last Israeli.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2012-07-29 08:12  

#8  The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.

I told you my wife hated this neighborhood and that we needed a new residence or assignment in Paris....now look what has been arranged happened. What's more, I loathe these people.... they refuse to speak English, they know everything about this region and share virtually NOTHING !!!

Posted by: Besoeker   2012-07-29 07:26  

#7  If you were Israeli would you trust Obama?
Posted by: Fester Clunter7205   2012-07-29 06:23  

#6  US sees Israel as main spy threat

Important to have your priorities right.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2012-07-29 04:20  

#5  More from the original article:

During the Bush administration, the CIA ranked some of the world's intelligence agencies in order of their willingness to help in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism. One former U.S. intelligence official who saw the completed list said Israel, which hadn't been directly targeted in attacks by al-Qaida, fell below Libya, which recently had agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

...

Some CIA officials still bristle over the disappearance of a Syrian scientist who during the Bush administration was the CIA's only spy inside Syria's military program to develop chemical and biological weapons. The scientist was providing the agency with extraordinary information about pathogens used in the program, former U.S. officials said about the previously unknown intelligence operation.

At the time, there was pressure to share information about weapons of mass destruction, and the CIA provided its intelligence to Israel. A former official with direct knowledge of the case said details about Syria's program were published in the media. Although the CIA never formally concluded that Israel was responsible, CIA officials complained to Israel about their belief that Israelis were leaking the information to pressure Syria to abandon the program. The Syrians pieced together who had access to the sensitive information and eventually identified the scientist as a traitor.

Before he disappeared and was presumed killed, the scientist told his CIA handler that Syrian Military Intelligence was focusing on him.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2012-07-29 02:54  

#4  ABCA: America, Britain, Canada, Australia (and New Zealand).
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2012-07-29 02:44  

#3  From the original article, a reference to ABCA:

Israel is not America's closest ally, at least when it comes to whom Washington trusts with the most sensitive national security information. That distinction belongs to a group of nations known informally as the "Five Eyes." Under that umbrella, the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand agree to share intelligence and not to spy on one another. Often, U.S. intelligence officers work directly alongside counterparts from these countries to handle highly classified information not shared with anyone else.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2012-07-29 02:43  

#2  Oafs maybe. The call went out this was false.What do I care? Israel has the ball right now - obama or no-bama.

Posted by: newc   2012-07-29 01:55  

#1  We are allied with Israel. Israel is not allied with us, however. They see themselves free to play the field, and we're just a bunch of big, dumb oafs.
Posted by: gromky   2012-07-29 00:47  

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