06/12/08 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

and what troubles investigators most particularly in new york in the counterterrorism alright folks so that's uh... parts one through three of carl cameron series for fox news shortly after the september eleventh attacks pretty boring stuff right no wonder you haven't heard a word about it since unless of course you are a regular reader of antiwar dot com or perhaps counterpunch but uh... i'd like to go ahead and welcome back to the show our regular guest philip giraldi he's a former cia officer is a senior contributing editor something like that for the american conservative magazine in a regular contributor to antiwar dot com is a column there is called smoke and mirrors is new in the american conservative is called the spy who loves us israeli espionage in america welcome back to the show phil i don't got i'm doing good how are you i'm fine okay so uh... we just heard uh... parts one through three of fox news is special israeli spying in america right after september eleventh and uh... i guess you know it's sort of out of order from the article but uh... let's sort of start there what we know about what israeli spies were up to inside the united states of america and particularly in relation to any knowledge they may have had about the hijackers and uh...an imminent attack on the united states well there are a lot of questions uh...uh... let's let's start it with uh... you know what you were talking about with converse and and dox uh... the two israeli companies that have been most directly implicated in uh... involvement in uh... u s security and telecommunications systems uh... as a former intelligence officer i would make the point you really want to find out what's going on anywhere the easiest way to do it or the best way to do it is to tap into somebody's communication systems and uh... telecommunications security systems and that's precisely uh... one of the suspicions that that fox report uh... laid out did you tell of the history of the fox report uh... well just uh... just a little bit that they are right after september eleventh and then it's been taken down from the fox news website yet to go to the information clearinghouse to find it now right exactly a minute with it uh... it it was removed uh... in a couple days after it came out from the fox news internet site and then i i i believe a couple days later it disappeared completely uh... was completely expunged from their system you know telling you a little bit about what the uh... sensitivity of all this uh... was in terms of some people who didn't want the story to come out your your other question about nine eleven is more complicated i i i'm i'm not necessarily and and my article that i'm assuming pain that israel knew about nine eleven although there are some people that believe that to be the key to be the case all i was suggesting was that the activities of uh...the art students who were uh... in the united states in large numbers and some of these moving companies uh... located in in new jersey specifically uh... and also some some businesses down in florida where these people were living in close proximity too many of the nine eleven hijackers it raises the suspicion something was going on that the uh... certainly the the fbi cia everybody the d a everybody who's looked into it believes that uh... many of these people and not necessarily all of them many of them were engaged in espionage activities directed against uh... arabs living in the united states and perhaps the hijackers themselves perhaps the hijackers themselves yeah and the point is it's not suspicious to you it's suspicious to the fbi agents the cia agents who did investigating on this case yeah that's that that's the point when we when we uh... set out to to write this article we didn't want to do a hatchet job on on the israelis earning like that because we didn't want it to be perceived as as something that was uh... was was biased from the start and and basically i went out to collect all of what i thought to be reliable information coming from fbi investigations d e a investigations the uh... general accountability office or report and and information like that which you know i felt would be viewed as credible credible witness for what uh... the the state of play was in terms of israeli espionage in the united states right you're trying to make a larger point that there's something going on here and it's not consistent with them being our number one welfare recipient and so-called ally in the world yeah that yet that was my point at the end of the article that you know that this is not a consistent behavior the israelis claim they do not spy but the evidence seems to be very heavily that they do spy and i'm merely say it's suggesting that uh...anybody who receives you know multi billion dollars a year from the u s taxpayer and also political cover at places like the united nations and just about everywhere else maybe at least those of uh... a quick pro quo here of not spying on us right okay well i do me a favor phil i was ten years old at the time i barely uh... no thing about it tell me and and the audience refresh our memory about jonathan pollard and the case their giant spying case in the nineteen eighties yeah well jonathan pollard was uh... was an israeli spy he spied for at least three years for them was receiving uh... money uh... his motivation apparently was somewhat uh... loyalty to israel in a kind of generic way but but it was mostly money that he was interested in and uh... he worked for the uh... uh... defense department and he was able to steel apparently a uh... an entire room full of uh...highly sensitive uh... documents many of which uh...uh... related to uh... security of of communicate again but we get back to communication systems and things like this and capabilities of satellites and and the kind of information that is of uh...top-level interest to any intelligence service so he stole a whole room full of this kind of classified information gave it to israel and uh... seymour hirsch among others believes that a lot of this information wound up in russia where the israelis exchanged it russian permission to to let some uh... some uh... russian jews uh... leave the country so uh... this information wound up presumably in the hands of the united states principal enemy so this was not a benign activity that wound up uh...in in just in israel to benefit the israelis it went far beyond that well now there's something that i do remember from nineteen eighty six that the soviet union with the bad guys and had a bunch of nuclear missiles pointed at us yeah well that's that's the point the defenders of pollard often say well he would be really did nothing wrong he was helping an ally he was giving them information they needed for their defense and so on and so forth well that's nonsense and and uh... the reason why pollard has has not been released uh... from prison is the fact that everybody on the inside knows very well that pollard uh... given tons of information that had nothing to do with israel nothing to do with the middle east and uh...and uh... in fact the information went on to the russians and benefited the russians in in their confrontation with us all right now just uh... recently what a month-and-a-half ago or so it came out that there was another israeli spy actually an american citizen who was spying for israel named then in the kiddush uh... just from what i read in newsweek uh... phil i think uh...this sort of shed all brand new light on the jonathan pollard case back from nineteen eighty six house that yet doesn't need to shed uh... new light on it because it suggests that that at the time the israelis are women when pollard was caught and pollard was convicted he really israelis privately agreed with the u s government that they had been spying and that they wouldn't do it anymore and uh... they they basically said this was a rogue operation well it turns out it wasn't a rogue operation because there was another rogue out there and uh... and also uh... the national security uh... agency has intercepted uh... communications that indicate that the israelis had yet another more senior spy whom they referred to as mega and there's been a lot of speculation as to who made his mega obviously is still out there uh... i want to hear some speculation as to mega is i don't think i'd better do that i know a few names that are being thrown around and even henry kissinger has been named as a possible mega but uh... there are a couple more that are quite plausible when one thinks about it but i'd rather not name names uh... g's all right well i'm trying to remember cuz i know that james bamford has talked about uh... brought up uh... an old washington post story from nineteen ninety seven or something like that where uh...they talk about that whoever this guy mega was he was in a position where he knew not just the file numbers but the top even super duper top secret titles of article of uh... intelligence reports and so forth that he must be a very senior level person to have this kind of uh... intelligence clearance yeah yeah that's that's the theory because apparently both uh...pollard and cottage were directed to steal specific uh... intelligent to request and then steal specific intelligence reports or assessments and they had the names they had the numbers at these names and numbers because that sensitivity of the reports could only have come from someone who was at the very top level of the u s government at the very top level so this would be maybe not necessarily cabinet level but uh... say uh...someone like the head of counter-terrorism or something like that i would say yeah you're you're looking basically at at uh...maybe the one or two or three top people in uh...something like the f b i something like the n s a but more likely to do that the evidence used indicate this mega was a a political player so that would actually more likely be someone's that cabinet level or somebody equivalent to that let me know if you have all know please you don't know how you know it's a good speculation would be that i think uh...that somebody may be in the national security council structure someone like that yeah i guess that's what i was trying to get out with the uh...the counter-terrorism thing somebody uh... who's an executive agent not necessarily a secretary of something but but pretty high up and and i think one of the uh...other qualifications for this uh... mega is that uh... they've had this level of clearance in multiple administrations right yet the individual involved with uh... so it seems would have been uh... in place during both republican and democratic administrations all right interesting stuff uh... i'm sure that there is a down to a relation on who it might be that's got to be less than a dozen people are on your list the right try about six yeah try about six a half a dozen on on phil shortlist there well i'm sure that there's a grand jury investigating this right now right of course okay sorry i'm sure that's actually not the case now this guy benamika dish apparently gave the israelis uh... information on f fifteens and i think even on nuclear weaponry is that right yeah uh... my understanding is he gave them avionics information on f fifteens and sixteens and also there was uh... information that that dealt with uh... nuclear weapons and delivery systems this is like a old case sort of a cold case this guy's an old man now he's not going to be uh... prosecuted for treason well i would like to see impart prosecuted for treason but uh... it's not likely i'm quite surprised actually they let him out on bail and you know this is this is a case of of uh... of treason if there ever was one and uh...but he's out on bail i would think there's considerable risk of of his fling to israel from which he would not be extradited so i'm quite uh...confused by the uh... signal that the u.s. courts are sending on this well now when this story came out you wrote on the american conservatives blog at uh... and comment dot com you were hearing that the leak actually came from inside israel that it seems uh... perhaps i believe you're speculating a correct me if i'm wrong that maybe this is coming from anti-war forces inside israel the timing of it was uh...part of an attempt to disrupt cheney's plot for war with iran yeah i've heard i've heard a couple of theories you know uh... at that time and and since then but everybody seems to agree that the uh... the fbi did not have it any information did not have a clue about this to spend on the cottage uh... spying for israel but that the information came from israel i'm not exactly sure what the channel would have been but obviously it had to come from somebody in the security services are or relatively high up in the government and the in the initial speculation was that this was probably possibly done kind of throw a spanner into the works of of the plans that uh... israel united states were cranking up to attack iran justice to kind of you know throw things off and uh...uh... i'm not so sure that that's true or not but uh... that certainly was the speculation interesting now uh... we gotta get to the neoconservatives because uh... i don't think it's been uh... alleged at least for a long long time that uh... our household name uh... favorite neocons like paul wolfowitz richard pearl douglas five are actually israeli spies uh... but are clearly such israeli partisans that their foreign policy uh... seems to be all centered around the clean break plan that uh... david wilson and uh... douglas fife and richard pro wrote up for benjamin netanyahu in nineteen ninety six and uh...they've been described i guess as agents of influence for israel uh...when you say about that what do you think of them well it's uh... purple let me point out that all those people you've named have in fact that investigated for under suspicion of passing classified information to israel so it's much not just pure speculation that these people uh... would on occasion to have have indicated or demonstrated a willingness to go beyond uh... what are the normal restraints to assist the israelis as they see it whether they're agent of it israel aren't agent of influence for israel are not it is a matter of semantics i think uh... these people are all uh...deeply uh... in love with israel and uh... have have uh... strongly continuing relationships and very often uh... business relationships uh... dot quite as you know and richard perot both have had business interests in in israel that have enriched and greatly and uh... so that's that's one side of it but i think that the point is that the neocons have been engaging in this con job forever which is that essentially in the and the way they see the world israel in the united states are united in our virtually one entity and everybody else's is basically uh... shade of gray or shade of black and uh...this is of course a a horrible misreading of the reality of the world in terms of the u.s. national interest doubt but this is the kind of uh... so they've been selling and uh...uh... some of them may in fact believe that israel the united states have have no differences in their everything everything in common but it's it's uh...it's it's not a few that i would share well just a reminder that i work on says that the iraq war really must be viewed in context as in israeli covert operation to get america to fight their enemies for them you know that's got there's an interesting story that's been coming out you realize the senate intelligence committee back uh...on the fifth i think it was released a report and uh... and the media focused on the fact that the report said that that bush administration been lying about the war well this is uh... the long-awaited and long-buried phase two report and uh... i think primarily philip it's uh... focused on uh... michael ladin and larry franklin's meetings down there in rome well and that's what i was going to say but there was uh... there's some intriguing stuff about uh... how it might have been the iranians who arranged some of this stuff by running uh... alleged defectors iranian defectors into the dean and and corbani far and and into the neocons at the pentagon because it was in the iranian interest for us to take out saddam hussein so that's a yet another wrinkle to the story and i think it is is maybe it's a waste an amusing uh... sidebar and that uh...the neocons might have been built by the iranian government this is some of the people have talked about uh... ever since it came out that on the job he had been passing secrets to the iranians i mean hell the i n c headquarters was in tehran when it that's right yeah that's right but i would get back to your your other assertion about you know about israel's war and i think that uh... my feeling on the war and i'm glad i read justin's column and i and i and i agree with uh... virtually everything he said but my feeling on the war is that the israel lobby and israel itself work were enablers of this war and that if uh... they had not been partisan and gung-ho on this issue and had not gotten their neocons cranked up in the in the administration to to push for it it would never happened there are other things that cause the war to happen to uh... but and oil is certainly one of the but that i'd i'd believe that without the israel interest in this there would not have been a war against iraq well what about the upcoming war against iran i keep trying to find other parts of the war party to identify besides israel lobbying i don't really seem to find them outside of the vice president's office anyway well i think you could look at uh... mister haiti uh... uh... pastor haiti as he was referred to yesterday when someone was asking me about him uh...and his uh... christians united for israel they were they're certainly christians and and uh...they're certainly interested in the while they're interested in the end of the world which will come about by apparently uh... attacking iran and uh... and then which somehow will bring about the second coming of christ well phil as long as you brought him up i might as well play this one clip real quick there's an army of two hundred million marching down the river euphrates coming toward the persian gulf there's going to be the meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world then there's going to be an invasion that is unplanned for on the charts of all of the dictators of the earth it's not an invasion from the north or the south or the east or the west it's an invasion from heaven and he will establish his kingdom and of his kingdom there shall be no end i'm telling you that makes this message one of the most thrilling prophetic messages you've ever heard in your life you could get raptured out of this building before i get through finished preaching we were that close john the revelator says in revelation the nineteenth and i john saw the heavens open and he that sat upon a white horse was called faithful and true and in righteousness doth he judge and make war and out of his mouth shall go a two-edged sword with which he shall smite the nations of the earth so phil i'm not so sure that if i was a member of the israel lobby that i would counsel it a good idea to ally with lunatics like this well uh... yeah but uh... but nevertheless they are lied to me as you know he's he's spoken at a pack and was very well received there and uh... he he's also uh...good friend of joe lieberman and up until recently john mccain so he has uh...he had a lot of friends and also uh... he has uh...has as up until recently had excellent access to the white house but as far as other like you mentioned oil and in the church in terms of iraq that's sort of a broader coalition of people coming together for the war with iraq are we really simply down to a pack uh... the vice president's office in the cornerstone church pushing for this next one uh... well of course israel itself uh... that that's also been them making job loud noises that it's about to do something particularly over the past couple weeks i don't know i mean i can't see anyone else out there who seems to think that going to war with iran is a good idea let's face it it only really takes the president to feel that way too to let a war happen uh... the the air force seems to be interested in proving that it's it's able to fight a war and and this was willing to do the bombing or whatever would take uh... i'm not so sure that uh...a lot of people in the army which here the uh... that optimism but uh...that you know that they're always interest groups you can always call up people into doing things you can always you can always by people that this administration's been very good at buying people in terms of uh...to silence generals uh... so they don't criticize the the administration they retire and they get these plum jobs with the defense contractors and so on and so forth everybody's looking out for for number one and uh...you can always find people to say what you want them to say or do what you want them to do uh... well you know george bush has been uh... saying over in europe that he really regrets a lot of his macho talk bring them on and that kind of thing that he turned right around and said the iranians need to know all options are on the table and uh...here we still are uneven war perpetually it seems like yeah and condoleezza rice said the week before that uh...but there was no point talking to the iranians because there's nothing to talk about but i think i mean that's an idiot comment there was one there about a hundred things talk and now you know what let's go ahead and get uh... some more of the details here she will not sit down with them she accused them of refusing to sit down with her but the demand is that they must cease all uranium enrichment in order for any negotiations to begin basically she demands unconditional surrender in order to get the talk started fell and then she says that they won't talk to her that's right and i find it as crazy as you do the uh... that the fact is that uh...the insistence on preconditions are basically a surrender by one side doesn't produce negotiations anywhere i don't i don't under quite to understand what's going on it obviously the administration doesn't want to talk to them doesn't want to come to any any kind of understanding with them and it's in it using this kind of line as as a justification for for avoiding that right now your former cia covert operative i'm sure you must still have uh... friends inside the intelligence community always come out with all these uh...excellent articles uh... sourced from unnamed sources and things like that that the rest of us don't have and uh... we all know everybody remembers the last november the cia said that the iranians have no nuclear weapons program and the only one they ever had uh... was in two thousand three was given up in two thousand three and never involve the introduction of nuclear materials or anything else do you know phil geraldi honest true scouts honor do you know of any evidence that has come out since then that would indicate that the iranians are in fact building nuclear weapons the short answer is no i do not know of any evidence that's credible that doesn't come from defector sources or doesn't come from the israelis that would indicate that they have a nuclear weapons program now it because uh... the mcclatchy news story today and and they always do a really good job but they cite concerns new concerns by the i a e a are out you know putting this uh... back on the front burner and meanwhile i just read the new i a e a report and it says in there that they have been able to continue to verify the non-diversion they've been able to continue to prove the negative to prove the non-diversion of any nuclear material to special or other military purpose yeah well you know the thing is there's a there's a there's always a there is a suspicion that iran has a secret program and i must admit if i were on and i had two hundred and sixty thousand u.s.troops right next door and a huge naval flotilla right off the coast uh... i'd probably be thinking of developing a nuclear weapon real fast so i you know it is the plausibility of this is real high but at the same time the evidence is not there there is no evidence and and the thought of us going to a war to a war situation based on no evidence just speculation i think it's totally unacceptable and i i think it's uh...i would like to certainly like to see the american people tell their elected officials that this is unacceptable well and it is a kind of thing where we can tell that our government knows it's lying when they make all these assertions to the contrary i mean you're telling me there's no evidence and yet they're telling me all day there's evidence well that's true and but this is this has been uh...paralleled in terms of their other claims against iran the claims about the iraq iranians are killing our troops and that sort of thing there's a as far as i know they've only been two attempts made by the occupation forces to show some of these weapons allegedly that have come from iran the first one was back i think in two thousand seven and uh... it was so unconvincing that that the media uh... wrote up accounts of it saying that uh...that it didn't demonstrate anything that the that the uh... the pentagon was trying to demonstrate and and then they tried it again last month and then they had to cancel the briefing because they took another look at the weapons and determined that none of them were from iran it's kind of you know the whole administration policy towards iran as you construct these stories and do you stick with them and it doesn't matter if you have any evidence for their not and they just stick with the story stick with the story and they know that the press is going to play the story over and over again and and eventually the u s public will get convinced that iran has nuclear weapons already that uh... it's a it's uh... sending its soldiers across the border to kill our troops you know uh... that it is just unending that well you know it's very interesting that was hitler's technique he defined it he says will you just tell a really big line you tell it over and over again no one would ever believe that you'd lie about something that big so it works that's right i hate to do you know bring up the hitler analogy because i just ruins all arguments or whatever but that's a george bush says well my line of work he just have to keep saying things over and over and over again to catapult the propaganda which is i guess you know his version of explaining the big lie technique that's right and he certainly has a he has uh... cited hitler more than once in terms of uh...his allegations about both saddam hussein and about uh...yeah there you go so that makes it fair i can invoke hitler in my criticism of him right now let's get back to israeli spying uh... here in the united states a little bit more uh... i get the idea from uh...from your article that uh... no matter what the fbi or the cia or the nsa or anybody tries to do within the united states to you know limit the influence of our possible israeli infiltration and so forth but uh... also to investigate and prosecute and do anything about these things when they find out about the matter the fact is seems always be thwarted by political pressure from above is that right yeah sure because if you're going to you know you can investigate what you want but if you're going to prosecute someone for a crime that has to be done by the justice department of the justice department is really receiving instructions from the white house saying that we're not going to go after these people then nothing's gonna happen and that's how it happens consistently that's how it happens consistently there would have been uh... it's my understanding from sources inside uh... the government that there would have been a lot of prosecutions of israeli spies because many of them have been caught instead of them being prosecuted they're just basically uh... released and allowed to go home now um... let's try to uh... if it's alright with you i'd like to try to get back a little bit to the art students in the movers here before september eleventh the movers particularly uh... we're in new jersey in liberty state park and uh... as you uh... detail in your article after only the first hour had been struck win ninety nine percent of the american people uh... who knew what had happened we're assuming that this was some terrible accident these men were uh... seen celebrating the attack and uh...locals called nine one one on that's right that's how they were uh...they were discovered and they were seen by horrified locals dancing and singing and and in front of the uh... power go the burning power and as i say this was before the second power was struck and apparently the implication was that everyone at that point well i was at cia headquarters that day in a a unit cia headquarters everybody assumed it was a it was a horrible accident so the uh...movers must have known something or met perhaps were were speculating on something who knows well now i don't know what is that supposed to tell me about the cia no offense when you guys were suspecting a thing i thought there'd you know been here on fire all summer long that something was gonna happen you weren't suspicious of what this might be well i don't think anybody had put it all together to to be suspicious of a of a plane being used as a missile and uh... they've had been a different kind of terrorist attack i think everybody would realize instantly that's what it was but this was uh... this was uh... new in in you know admittedly there were a couple years before there had been an attempt to uh...hijack some airliners in the philippines by by al-qaeda mhm so it should not have been a big surprise but i think it in in this case it was i guess that's why people are so suspicious about nine eleven cuz they just can't believe that you guys are that incompetent without for you guys i don't work for many more and i know i know i'm sorry no offense i'm just playing you know that uh... yeah you know there's there's certainly enough blame to go around and on uh... what happened in nine eleven and there've been a couple of books written that have you have shown how the dot should have been connected both by the fbi and by the cia but they didn't for various reasons mostly bureaucratic and uh...you know but that's that's the way it goes sometimes where you can you can have all the information the world in some ways the more information you have the more blind you are because you're seeing so many things you're not seeing something that should be obvious yeah all that data but not much wisdom buried in it absolutely well so i guess you guys must have been really angry when it uh...became uh...well at least it began to seem as though the israelis knew more about what was going to happen than you guys at least these five guys in the white van well yeah and and possibly the art students to the uh...there was an interesting article that i did not use in my uh...in my article because i couldn't verify it uh...shortly after nine eleven the german uh... very respectable german weekly news publication deep site uh... had an article about uh... nine eleven and they interviewed an israeli intelligence officer and the intelligence officer reportedly said if the art students have been allowed to stay in the united states a bit longer they might have been able to stop nine eleven and uh... as i said didn't use it as it was something i couldn't verify didn't know who the intelligence officer was by name i couldn't find that out but of course if it's true it's an admission by the israeli government that they had a massive spying program going on the united states and it was directed uh... against uh... uh...arabs and specifically against the uh... these hijackers well you know christopher ketchum in his piece that he did for counterpunch speculates in he calls it speculation in the peace that uh... perhaps the cia had outsourced the monitoring of at least the two guys that uh... came into san diego from malaysia uh... to the massad uh... rather than trusting the fbi with the job which i can see that has a reasonable conclusion that someone in the cia would come to you to not trust the fbi but that he speculated this because there was a meeting between uh... some israeli officials and the fbi in august of two thousand one and then just the next day or two days later uh... these two guys names i believe i'll meet our and and his buddy appeared on the list on the uh... the watch list of the the uh... some kind of uh...look out for these guys list of the fbi well i think but i think they got i think that information was eventually passed by the cia i think if you if you see that the timeline all this uh... but uh... i didn't know i find it implausible that the agency would outsource the most out because uh...are you sure you inside the agency most artists not thought of very well uh... on in all quarters uh... well it's not the political level will always you know but do whatever they're told to do but the uh...working-level cia officers are not particularly fond of mossad date and and uh... they they have felt for a long time that mossad in spite of agreements never like that doesn't ever play fair and that uh... the intelligence that comes out of mossad is usually bogus and it's essentially produced to keep the united states uh...reliant on israel and uh... the information itself is is has been viewed as quite uh... quite doubtful i remember reading and uh... by way of deception by victor australian i don't really know a lot about the guy whether he's considered to be very credible or not but he wrote that their attitude inside the mossad is that if the americans know something that they need to know well they'd better tell us but if they know something the americans need to know and their big boys will figure it out you know what i would consider that to be true yet and could you comment on uh... australian general do you know well i don't know a whole lot about a my i i have read the book although it was a number years ago that i read it and i found the time that uh... what he was saying was quite credible uh... you know the israelis for all much of their history were indeed a country under siege and i can see if you're a small country you rely on your intelligence service you've got to play the game as if everybody is a potential enemy i can understand that but the fact is that's not been true in israel for the last forty years or so and uh... the united and israel is now that the dominant military and economic power in the middle east no question about it and uh... uh... these realities don't have to stay in place and and uh... that's why i feel that the uh...israeli spying as united states is just at this point in time is just not justified and for the united states to sit back and let it happen uh... one of the things we haven't discussed is that uh... the spying is is largely focused on on military technology and types of information that the israelis then use in their own armaments industry and they sell to other people like the chinese so this stuff winds up in places we don't want it to wind up and then you have american companies paying for all the research and development costs and the israeli stealing it and and they wind up with the product and they can compete against u.s.companies very effectively uh... so the u.s. companies are at a disadvantage uh... i i'm not a great fan of defense contractors but insofar as we do need their services this is this is not good for the united states well this is something that was a big scandal a couple years back right that the israelis had given some very uh... highly advanced early warning radar systems to the chinese uh... they they gave some uh... missile technology sidewinder missile technology they were trying to sell very advanced surveillance aircraft technology to the indians and uh... this was back i think it two thousand five and the uh... the pentagon action one of its rare uh... standing up to the israeli moments uh... told them that they wouldn't let it happen and they actually started to cut off contacts with uh...with the israeli officers and and things like that to show their disapproval so the israelis backed off on it can israeli uh... or the israeli lobbyist influence in washington be overstated i mean the spectacle of the a pat conference where uh... mccain clinton and obama all three went and just about in scraping obama even advanced what had been off the table for a long time the idea that uh... all of jerusalem belongs to the israelis i guess they're gonna rebuild the temple now and all this stuff according to him well i guess so i mean it's a candidate the question can the lobby the strength be overstated i don't think so uh... as long as what one is only looking at uh... middle eastern policy which is obviously what they're interested in uh... no i think they have a absolute stranglehold on the policy right now and they have the stranglehold in both parties and also in the u s media do you think that uh... steven rosen and keith weisman who were the uh...indicted co-conspirators with uh... convicted spy larry franklin will ever go to trial uh... i'm beginning to doubt if they ever will because they just keep keep to keep dragging on and dragging on and dragging on and uh... and i i know it's the desire of the administration to make this thing go away and i would imagine a democratic administration coming in or indeed john mccain coming in uh... to continue the republican control would uh...would be similarly inclined i think i think they will make every effort to make it go away should we consider it a miracle that these guys were or that you know franklin was ever prosecuted this story uh... ever came out at all by well franklin of course work for the pentagon so you know that was a prosecution of somebody for leaking secrets but you know to guide of course work for a pack and that's a lot more sensitive independent so uh...so yeah i'm surprised that actually i'm surprised that that there ever will keep it was a prosecution goodness gracious all right well um oh let me ask you one more thing you broke the story in two thousand five in the american conservative magazine that uh... the war plans that dick cheney was having the air force draw up for uh... possible strikes on iran included the uh... possible use of nuclear weapons on them and he told me uh... i guess probably about a year ago i think phil that uh... there were two possibilities for the use of nuclear weapons in a war against iran the first would be to try to get at the underground nuclear facilities uh... say for example at natanz uh... buried under eighty five feet of granite or so and then the second would be to basically i think he said hold them in our back pocket in order to tell the iranians don't you dare fight back against us in any effective way or we'll nuke you is do you believe that that is still the case that this kind of strategy is included and dick cheney's war plans for iran yeah i think both of those elements are still there i think there are some uh... targets like that uh... the did not just the time but uh... that the ratings have been preparing for this attack for five years and they have a lot of their command and control and other facilities deep underground apparently so this would be a way to to to neutralize those sites uh... and so i i suspect it's still very much in the war plan whether this is a first-rate concept or something that's uh...might be used later i don't know but uh...but certainly i think that the uh...the threat of of the united states escalating if iran doesn't roll over uh... is still very hot and i think that would include the threat of using nuclear weapons if the iranians uh... were very successful in their retaliation say to the iranians are able to to cut the supply line from kuwait up into uh... iraq and are we have we have a hundred thousand plus troops kind of uh...besieged i don't i don't know any better way to describe it uh... we might threaten nuclear weapons in a situation like that i could i can easily see that and you have sources inside the national security bureaucracy are indicating to you that that's actually the case well i have had sources tell me in the past that the uh... the nuclear option would be there with iran if the uh... the situation began to get out of control so that's what they were saying what they're saying right now i'm i'm not sure all right everybody that's uh... phil gerardi right smoke and mirrors at antiwar dot com his new piece in the american conservative magazine is called the spy who loves us pay no mind to the masada agent on the line i'll try to ignore until okay thanks a lot for your time today thank you scott