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Bin-Laden Surrounded - death more likely than capture

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ISRAEL DID IT?
While Mossad manipulates U.S. policies, Congress fears to tread

 "A key U.S. ally behind-the-scenes in the war in Iraq,
Israel has been contributing intelligence, tactics and
technology mostly in secret to avert an Arab backlash,
congressional aides and analysts said" toda in Washington.

Even with a former ranking Israeli official publicly calling for an investigation of the false and misleading information provided by the Israelis to push the U.S. to invade Iraq, still official Washington cowers.    Add to that this article by former Israeli Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky which shows the tactics that Mossad uses in order to manipulate both world affairs and public perceptions.  These are the very same tactics and methods being currently used now to manipulate US government policies,  public opinion as well as to disseminate disinformation about the 'war on terrorism' and the Palestinian Intifada.  



Inquiry urged into Iraq war intelligence supplied by Israel


By Joshua Mitnick

    [The Washington Times - 5 December - TEL AVIV] — An Israeli reserve brigadier general has called for an investigation of the role his country's intelligence community played in overstating the threat of Saddam Hussein's unconventional arsenal before the Iraq war.
    Arguing that the United States and Britain also exaggerated the threat from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, the general said in a research paper, "The third party in this intelligence failure, Israel, has remained in the shadows."
    "Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence," wrote Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom, now a fellow at Tel Aviv University's Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies. He said Israel should investigate the handling of the prewar intelligence reports.
    The reserve officer wrote that Israel need not apologize for the outcome of the war because the benefits of wiping out Iraq's hostile regime greatly outweighed the costs. But he cautioned against using that as an excuse for avoiding the inquiry.
    The call for an investigation was taken up by Yossi Sarid, a parliament member from the left-wing Meretz party who already has complained that a decision to place the country on high alert during the war had sown public alarm and led to the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars.
    "We've lost credibility both domestically and internationally" by exaggerating the threat, Mr. Sarid said. "If we now come with grave data about Iran's arming with weapons of mass destruction, who is going to take us seriously? They might say, 'It's hard to believe you because you exaggerated about Iraq.' "
    According to Gen. Brom's analysis, Israel had failed to consider seriously the possibility that Iraq had been largely disarmed by international inspectors and had put development plans on hold out of fear of the United States.
    He blamed this on three factors: an oversimplified conception of Saddam as "the embodiment of evil," sloppy analysis of Iraqi capabilities, and 30 years of anxiety caused by the military's failure to anticipate the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
    Gen. Brom also criticized the intelligence community's prediction that Saddam would launch weapons of mass destruction against Israel if he felt his regime was in danger of being overrun. Gen. Brom said that theory underestimated the Iraqi president's desire to survive a U.S. attack.
    His analysis suggests that Israel might have downplayed its assessment that Iran posed a bigger threat than Iraq to fall into line with the United States. But he ruled out the likelihood of any kind of deliberate political manipulation of intelligence.
    Gen. Brom, a former chief of the Israeli army's strategic-planning division, said his analysis was based entirely on public information about the strategic picture before the war.
    "Friendly intelligence services exchange assessments. And in this case, there was a harmony of opinions. Everyone thought the same way," Gen. Brom said yesterday.
    "There was a case of mutual reinforcement. People in the Israeli intelligence felt good that the Americans thought the same way, and the opposite was true."


How Mossad Got America To
Bomb Libya And Fight Iraq

By Victor Ostrovsky* and Claire Hoy

*Victor Ostrovsky was a Mossad case officer from 1982 to 1986

Revealing the facts as I know them from my vantage point of four years spent inside the Mossad was by no means an easy task.

Coming from an ardent Zionist background, I had been taught that the state of Israel was incapable of misconduct. That we were the David in the unending struggle against the ever-growing Goliath. That there was no one out there to protect us but ourselves - a feeling reinforced by the Holocaust survivors who lived among us.

We, the new generation of Israelites, the resurrected nation on its own land after more than two thousand years of exile, were entrusted with the fate of the nation as a whole.

The commanders of our army were called champions, not generals. Our leaders were captains at the helm of a great ship. I was elated when I was chosen and granted the privilege to join what I considered to be the elite team of the Mossad.

But it was the twisted ideals and self-centred pragmatism that I encountered inside the Mossad, coupled with this so-called team's greed, lust, and total lack of respect for human life, that motivated me to tell this story.

It is out of love for Israel as a free and just country that I am laying my life on the line by so doing, facing up to those who took it upon themselves to turn the Zionist dream into the present-day nightmare.

The Mossad, being the intelligence body entrusted with the responsibility of plotting the course for the leaders at the helm of the nation, has betrayed that trust. Plotting on its own behalf, and for petty, self-serving reasons, it has set the nation on a collision course with all-out war.

One of the main themes of this book is Victor's belief that Mossad is out of control, that even the prime minister, although ostensibly in charge, has no real authority over its actions

The Mossad - believe it or not - has just 30 to 35 case officers, or katsas, operating in the world at any one time. The main reason for this extraordinary low total, as you will read in this book, is that unlike other countries, Israel can tap the significant and loyal cadre of the worldwide Jewish community outside Israel. This is done through a unique system of sayanim, volunteer Jewish helpers.

My first six weeks were uneventful. I worked at the downtown office, essentially as a gofer and filing clerk. But one chilly day in February 1984, I found myself joining 14 others on a small bus. ... This course was to be known as Cadet 16, as it was the sixteenth course of Mossad cadets.

He walked briskly to the head of the table while the other two sat at the back of the room. 'My name is Aharon Sherf,' he said. 'I am the head of the Academy. Welcome to the Mossad. Its full name is Ha Mossad, le Modiyn ve le Tafkidim Mayuhadim [the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations]. Our motto is: 'By way of deception, thou shalt do war.'

'It's the old Trojan dick trick.' He lit a cigarette.

'What's that?' I couldn't help smiling; I'd never heard it called that before.

'I knew that would get your attention,' he said, grinning. 'Shimon activated Operation Trojan in February of this year.'

I nodded. I'd still been in the Mossad when that order was given, and because of my naval background and acquaintance with most of the commanders in the navy, I participated in the planning for the operation as liaison with the navy.

A Trojan was a special communication device that could be planted by naval commandos deep inside enemy territory. The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations. Originating from an IDF navy ship out at sea, the pre-recorded digital transmissions could be picked up only by the Trojan. The device would then rebroadcast the transmission on another frequency, one used for official business in the enemy country, at which point the transmission would finally be picked up by American ears in Britain.

The listeners would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine communication, hence the name Trojan, reminiscent of the mythical Trojan horse. Further, the content of the messages, once deciphered, would confirm information from other intelligence sources, namely the Mossad. The only catch was that the Trojan itself would have to be located as close as possible to the normal origin of such transmissions, because of the sophisticated methods of triangulation the Americans and others would use to verify the source.

In the particular operation Ephraim was referring to, two elite units in the military had been made responsible for the delivery of the Trojan device to the proper location. One was the Matkal reconnaissance unit and the other was Flotilla 13, the naval commandos. The commandos were charged with the task of planting the Trojan device in Tripoli, Libya.

On the night of February 17-18, two Israeli missile boats, the SAAR 4-class Moledet, armed with Harpoon and Gabriel surface-to surface missiles, among other weaponry, and the Geula, a Hohit-class missile boat with a helicopter pad and regular SAAR 4-class armament, conducted what seemed like a routine patrol of the Mediterranean, heading for the Sicilian channel and passing just outside the territorial waters of Libya. Just north of Tripoli, the warships, which were visible to radar both in Tripoli and on the Italian island of Lampedusa, slowed down to about four knots - just long enough to allow a team of twelve naval commandos in four wet submarines nicknamed 'pigs' and two low-profiled speedboats called 'birds' to disembark. The pigs could carry two commandos each and all their fighting gear.

The birds, equipped with an MG 7.62-caliber machine gun mounted over the bow and an array of antitank shoulder-carried missiles, could facilitate six commandos each, while towing the empty plugs. The birds brought the pigs as close to the shore as possible, thus cutting down the distance the pigs would have to travel on their own. (The pigs were submersible and silent but relatively slow.)

Two miles off the Libyan coast, the lights of Tripoli could be seen glistening in the southeast. Eight commandos slipped quietly into the plugs and headed for shore. The birds stayed behind at the rendezvous point, ready to take action should the situation arise. Once they reached the beach, the commandos left their cigar like transporters submerged in the shallow water and headed inland, carrying a dark green Trojan cylinder six feet long and seven inches in diameter. It took two men to carry it.

A grey van was parked on the side of the road about one hundred feet from the water, on the coastal highway leading from Sabratah to Tripoli and on to Benghazi. There was hardly any traffic at that time of night. The driver of the van seemed to be repairing a flat tire. He stopped working as the team approached and opened the back doors of the van. He was a Mossad combatant. Without a word said, four of the men entered the van and headed for the city. The other four returned to the water, where they took a defensive position by the submerged pigs. Their job was to hold this position to ensure an escape route for the team now headed for the city.

At the same time, a squadron of Israeli fighters was refuelling south of Crete, ready to assist. They were capable of keeping any ground forces away from the commandos, allowing them a not-so clean getaway. At this point, the small commando unit was divided into three details - its most vulnerable state. Were any of the details to run into enemy forces, they were instructed to act with extreme prejudice before the enemy turned hostile.

The van parked at the back of an apartment building on Al Jamhuriyh Street in Tripoli, less than three blocks away from the Bab al Azizia barracks that were known to house Qadhafi's headquarters and residence. By then, the men in the van had changed into civilian clothing. Two stayed with the van as lookouts and the other two helped the Mossad combatant take the cylinder to the top floor of the five-story building. The cylinder was wrapped in a carpet.

In the apartment, the top section of the cylinder was opened and a small dishlike antenna was unfolded and placed in front of the window facing north. The unit was activated, and the Trojan horse was in place.

The Mossad combatant had rented the apartment for six months and had paid the rent in advance. There was no reason for anyone except the combatant to enter the apartment. However, if someone should decide to do so, the Trojan would self-destruct, taking with it most of the upper part of the building. The three men headed back to the van and to their rendezvous with their friends on the beach.

After dropping the commandos at the beach, the combatant headed back for the city, where he would monitor the Trojan unit for the next few weeks. The commandos wasted no time and headed out to sea. They didn't want to be caught in Libyan waters at daybreak. They reached the birds and headed at full speed to a prearranged pickup coordinate, where they met with the missile boats that had brought them in.

By the end of March, the Americans were already intercepting messages broadcast by the Trojan, which was only activated during heavy communication traffic hours. Using the Trojan, the Mossad tried to make it appear that a long series of terrorist orders were being transmitted to various Libyan embassies around the world (or, as they were called by the Libyans, Peoples' Bureaus). As the Mossad had hoped, the transmissions were deciphered by the Americans and construed as ample proof that the Libyans were active sponsors of terrorism. What's more, the Americans pointed out, Mossad reports confirmed it.

The French and the Spanish, though, were not buying into the new stream of information. To them, it seemed suspicious that suddenly, out of the blue, the Libyans, who'd been extremely careful in the past, would start advertising their future actions. They also found it suspicious that in several instances Mossad reports were worded similarly to coded Libyan communications. They argued further that, had there truly been after-the-fact Libyan communications regarding the attack, then the terrorist attack on the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin on April 5 could have been prevented, since surely there would have been communications before, enabling intelligence agencies listening in to prevent It. Since the attack wasn't prevented, they reasoned that it must not be the Libyans who did it, and the 'new communications' must be bogus. The French and the Spanish were right. The information was bogus, and the Mossad didn't have a clue who planted the bomb that killed one American serviceman and wounded several others. But the Mossad was tied in to many of the European terrorist organizations, and it was convinced that in the volatile atmosphere that had engulfed Europe, a bombing with an American victim was just a matter of time Heads of the Mossad were counting on the American promise to retaliate with vengeance against any country that could be proven to support terrorism. The Trojan gave the Americans the proof they needed. The Mossad also plugged into the equation Qadhafi's lunatic image and momentous declarations, which were really only meant for internal consumption.

It must be remembered that Qadhafi had marked a line in the water at that time, closing off the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan territorial waters and calling the new maritime border the line of death (an action that didn't exactly give him a moderate image). Ultimately, the Americans fell for the Mossad ploy head over heels dragging the British and the Germans somewhat reluctantly in with them. Operation Trojan was one of the Mossad's greatest successes. It brought about the air strike on Libya that President Reagan had promised - a strike that had three important consequences. First, it derailed a deal for the release of the American hostages in Lebanon, thus preserving the Hizballah (Party of God) as the number one enemy in the eyes of the West. Second, it sent a message to the entire Arab world, telling them exactly where the United States stood regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Third, it boosted the Mossad's image of itself, since it was they who, by ingenious sleight of hand, had prodded the United States to do what was right. It was only the French who didn't buy into the Mossad trick and were determined not to ally themselves with the aggressive American act. The French refused to allow the American bombers to fly over their territory on their way to attack Libya.

On April 14, 1986, one hundred and sixty American aircraft dropped over sixty tons of bombs on Libya. The attackers bombed Tripoli international airport, Bab al Azizia barracks, Sidi Bilal naval base, the city of Benghazi, and the Benine airfield outside Benghazi. The strike force consisted of two main bodies, one originating in England and the other from flattops in the Mediterranean. From England came twenty-four F-111s from Lakenheath, five EF-111s from Upper Heyford, and twenty-eight refuelling tankers from Mildenhall and Fairford. In the attack, the air force F-111s and the EF-111s were joined by eighteen A-6 and A-7 strike and strike support aircraft, six F\A-18 fighters, fourteen EA-6B electronic jammer planes, and other support platforms. The navy planes were catapulted from the carriers Coral Sea and America. On the Libyan side, there were approximately forty civilian casualties, including Qadhafi's adopted daughter. On the American side, a pilot and his weapons officer were killed when their F-111 exploded.

After the bombing, the Hizballah broke off negotiations regarding the hostages they held in Beirut and executed three of them, including one American named Peter Kilburn. As for the French, they were rewarded for their non-participation in the attack by the release at the end of June of two French journalists held hostage in Beirut. (As it happened, a stray bomb hit the French embassy in Tripoli during the raid.)

Ephraim had spelled it all out for me and confirmed some of the information I'd already known. He then went on. 'After the bombing of Libya, our friend Qadhafi is sure to stay out of the picture for some time. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We're starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there's no doubt it'll work.'

'But isn't Saddam regarded as moderate toward us, allied with Jordan, the big enemy of Iran and Syria?'

'Yes, that's why I'm opposed to this action. But that's the directive, and I must follow it. Hopefully, you and I will be done with our little operation before anything big happens. After all, we have already destroyed his nuclear facility, and we are making money by selling him technology and equipment through South Africa.'

In the following weeks, more and more discoveries were made regarding the big gun and other elements of the Saddam war machine. The Mossad had all but saturated the intelligence field with information regarding the evil intentions of Saddam the Terrible, banking on the fact that before long, he'd have enough rope to hang himself. It was very clear what the Mossad's overall goal was. It wanted the West to do its bidding, just as the Americans had in Libya with the bombing of Qadhafi. After all, Israel didn't possess carriers and ample air power, and although it was capable of bombing a refugee camp in Tunis, that was not the same. The Mossad leaders knew that if they could make Saddam appear bad enough and a threat to the Gulf oil supply, of which he'd been the protector up to that point, then the United States and its allies would not let him get away with anything, but would take measures that would all but eliminate his army and his weapons potential, especially if they were led to believe that this might just be their last chance before he went nuclear.






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December 2003


Magazine



2003: A WAR Inspired by and Made for ISRAEL
(December 31, 2003)
"It was seen as a second Palestine, not so much because it was a foreign conquest of another Arab country, but because, via the Bush Administration's neo-conservative hawks, it was at least as much Israeli in inspiration and purpose as it was American. The mighty blow struck in Baghdad would so weaken other Arab regimes that the Palestinians, more than ever bereft of Arab support, would submit to that full-scale Israeli subjugation and dispossession of all but a last pitiful fragment of their original homeland."

SHARON ATTACKS, PROVOKES, PREPARES
(December 27, 2003)
The Israelis have done things of this kind in the past. General Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is in fact the master of tactical provocation followed by strategic escalation. In recent years Sharon ignited Intifada II for his own purposes -- to take complete power, to essentially imprison Arafat as well as the 'peace process', and to quickly expand building 'the wall'. Now Sharon is determined to further inflame the conflict and crush this generation of Palestinians into submission.

What the Israelis Have Done to Bethlehem - NOT a Merry Christmas
(December 25, 2003)
Lets gets real here as another new year dawns. All this hubub this year past about 'Palestinian State', 'Geneva', and ad naseum 'peace process'...that's the past, those days are in fact gone now. The 'unilateral' and 'disengagement' approach about which Ariel Sharon of Israel publicly spoke this month has in actuality been Israeli policy "on the ground" for quite a long time now. The historical die is now cast.

Saddam Capture Show a Deception and Hoax?
(December 22, 2003)
The first major challenge to the American story of the capture of Saddam came over the weekend when Agence-France Press (AFP) published the following short article late Saturday picking up from the British media. Then, from the Sydney Morning Herald today this much more detailed article and analysis. As usual the compliant corporate American media is both asleep at the switch and afraid of the powers that be. They'll get on it only after others have already broken the ground and only when it is too late. Increasingly, the whole televised 'We Got Him' Saddam capture show and display has all the trappings of a classical CIA manipulation and deception effort.

Sharon's Ideological Core
(December 19, 2003)
"When he took the oath as Prime Minister not only was the ghost of Vladamir Jabotinsky in the room applauding but his picture was prominently on the wall."

ARIEL SHARON "Unilateral Disengagement" Speech
(December 18, 2003)
Israeli Prime Minister ARIEL SHARON's "Unilateral Disengagement" Speech delivered in Israel on 18 December 2003.

"IT IS as IT WAS" - The Pope on Christ and the Jews
(December 18, 2003)
This is truly an unusual Pope...one who does indeed take pride in attempting to be principled and honest, as conservative and yesteryear as he oftentimes appears. And now with these five words the Pope of Rome in his last days has in a sense reignited the very historical controversy surrounding 'the Jews' that he tried to significantly amend when he opened up working relations with international Jewry, visited Israel as well as a Palestinian refugee camp, and became the first Pope in history to visit a synagogue. And with these five words the Pope has as well helped underscore that the powerful Israeli/Jewish lobby does not always get its way...and in fact sometimes shoots itself in the foot.

'It Is as It Was' - The Pope on Christ and the Jews
(December 17, 2003)
This is truly an unusual Pope...one who does indeed take pride in attempting to be principled and honest, as conservative and yesteryear as he oftentimes appears. And now with these five words the Pope of Rome in his last days has in a sense reignited the very historical controversy surrounding 'the Jews' that he tried to significantly amend when he opened up working relations with international Jewry, visited Israel as well as a Palestinian refugee camp, and became the first Pope in history to visit a synagogue. And with these five words the Pope has as well helped underscore that the powerful Israeli/Jewish lobby does not always get its way...and in fact sometimes shoots itself in the foot.

Sharon Prepares 'Major Policy Address'
(December 16, 2003)
Sharon prepares to publicly orate in a few days about what he is now going to do having here-to-fore masterminded the settlements, the coming to power of the Likud, his own rise to the pinnacle of power, and most recently his sparking of Intifada II, his consolidation of Zionist Apartheid, and his building of the 'Wall'.

SADDAM
(December 14, 2003)
No pictures of now U.S. Vice-President, then U.S. Pentagon Secretary, Dick Cheney officially meeting with him in years past...years and meetings they now wish forgotten. No interview on any TV channels here or anywhere with American Ambassador April Glaspie, instructed by the former Bush President to pay a special visit to Saddam in one of his largest Baghdad palaces of yesteryear to inform him how important an Arab leader the Americans considered him to be. No reminders from the American media that when in fact he did use chemical weapons of mass destruction in 1988 he was one of the top U.S. allies with his weapons supplied and paid for by the U.S. and Britain. Saddam the tyrant, Saddam the meglamaniac, Saddam the President, Saddam the dictator, Saddam the wanabe Saladin....now captured disheveled hiding in a hole lacking even the courage of his own long-professed and repeatedly-expressed convictions.

Israel Did It! Where's the Investigation? Where's the Outrage?
(December 12, 2003)
Even with a former ranking Israeli official publicly calling for an investigation of the false and misleading information provided by the Israelis to push the U.S. to invade Iraq, still official Washington cowers. Add to that this article by former Israeli Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky which shows the tactics that Mossad uses in order to manipulate both world affairs and public perceptions. These are the very same tactics and methods being currently used now to manipulate US government policies, public opinion as well as to disseminate disinformation about the 'war on terrorism' and the Palestinian Intifada.

LIES AND DECEPTIONS THEN AND NOW
(December 10, 2003)
Back in 1997 the politicians of all stripes were loudly proclaiming the virtues of the "peace process" insisting it was "irreversible" and would soon finally result in a "Palestinian State". Clinton was President, Arafat was traveling here and there and everywhere, Peres and Barak were riding high. Beilin and Abed-Rabbo by the way -- those recently of 'Geneva' fame (or is it 'infamy') -- were both Minister VIPs pushing hard the 'Oslo Peace Process' while fattening their numerous personal bank accounts...just as they are now. But very frankly...we knew better. MER was speaking up loudly then about all the lies, the treacherous deceptions, the miserably self-serving politicians, the amazingly compliant corporate media...about the harsh brutality that even then we knew was building not to peaceful relatons but to violent explosion...just as we are now.

16th Intifada Anniversary
(December 8, 2003)


Intifada Anniversary
(December 8, 2003)
Adjusted to the size of the U.S. population the Palestinians have suffered more than a quarter million killed and over 4 million wounded since the start of the Intifada 16 years ago today.

The Real Yossi Beilin
(December 7, 2003)
Yossi Beilin has quite a past...and not one most Palestinians find very positive and certainly not very trustworthy.

Geneva Delusions, Washington Deceptions
(December 4, 2003)
Today'situation is far far far worse than before all the lies, tricks, and deceptions of Oslo I. Now there's a kind of Oslo II following on top of Gulf War II and designed to deligitimize and extinquish Intifada II. And it's all already on course for even worse disasters ahead.

America the Brutal, America the Ugly
(December 2, 2003)
This MER Editorial from six years ago fits today's situation to a tee and in fact helps explains how today's situation has come to be.




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