Neo-Con-INT, apparently:
A report by columnist Sidney Blumenthal in Salon claims that Israel is receiving intelligence from the US’s National Security Agency.
Blumenthal claims to be in touch with “a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation” to supply Israel with signals intelligence from American assets to help it monitor armament transfers from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah. He states that President Bush has approved the intelligence sharing.
Bush is being influenced by neoconservatives in his administration led by Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff and Elliot Abrams, senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council. The group, according to Blumenthal, seeks to start a ‘four front war’ by giving Israel the pretext to strike Iran and Syria. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been briefed, but is not a central actor in the plan.
This is news?
For those of you with short memories, Jonathan Pollard is in prison because he decided that Israel wasn’t getting enough intel from the US, so he kicked off his own sharing campaign. The key point to take away is that we share intel with a lot of countries, including Israel. When do we really share intel with our allies? When they’re at war.
