A Web Of Intrigue

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At that time, the FBI was already deep into its investigation of AIPAC. A former U.S. official interviewed by the FBI more than a year ago told TIME that the bureau sought information on key AIPAC personnel, their meetings with White House and other national-security officials in Washington and even details about their personal lives. At one point, the FBI was surveilling a meeting between an Israeli diplomat and an AIPAC official when the Pentagon's Franklin suddenly appeared, igniting concerns. Franklin, a former Air Force Reserve officer, served briefly in the U.S. military attache's office in Israel in the late 1990s. Since the summer of 2001, he has worked as an Iran expert for Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's third ranking official, a neoconservative long in favor of tougher measures against Iran. In 2001 Franklin and a Pentagon colleague were dispatched to Rome for a meeting with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer who had been a key figure in the 1980s' Iran-contra scandal. They were seeking intelligence on Iran from him. But the CIA has long considered Ghorbanifar unreliable, and the Bush Administration later cut off the contacts.

According to a former U.S. government source, the material Franklin passed to AIPAC included a draft of a National Security Presidential Directive dealing with U.S. policy on Iran. The document, a source says, had gone through several versions without ever achieving the status of official U.S. policy because of deep disagreements within the Administration over how to cope with Iran. A source familiar with multiple drafts of the document said it was a "glorified Op-Ed looking at how engagement [with Iran] doesn't work and how the U.S. needs a more robust strategy." A former senior U.S. official who also saw the drafts told TIME the directive did not explicitly call for regime change in Tehran and left open the possibility of cooperation with the Iranians on matters of mutual interest.

Meanwhile, a former case officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency says that when he was questioned in the I.N.C. case, the FBI seemed frustrated in that investigation. That case officer, who worked alongside I.N.C. intelligence gatherers at the time of the alleged breach, says he was interrogated and polygraphed by the FBI. He contended to TIME that the allegations against the I.N.C. are baseless and that the bureau is "grasping at straws." U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials insist that U.S. intercepts of Iranian communications prove that secrets about U.S. code-breaking were gravely breached and that the only question is, Who is to blame?

So far, no one, including Franklin, is known to have been charged in either case. In the meantime, AIPAC and its allies have launched a P.R. blitz, urging backers to bolster the group by contacting members of Congress with expressions of support. Whatever happens in the case, many in the FBI believe their ability to get to the bottom of the matter has been seriously compromised by the revelation of Franklin's name and other details leaking out about the scandal. "We may never know what really happened or how big and wide it was," says a bureau official. Using Franklin to make more cold calls on the I.N.C. case isn't a promising tactic either.