More charges to come in Pentagon analyst affair?

The New York Times reports that the two men (Steven Rosen, formerly AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, formerly AIPAC's senior Middle East analyst) were not specifically named in the charges brought Wednesday against Mr. Franklin for illegally disclosing highly classified information. But they were later identified by sources as the other two people present at the meeting where Franklin allegedly disclosed the information.

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The Times also reports that the charges against Franklin have "cast a cloud" over AIPAC, and are creating difficulties for some members, past and present, of the Bush administration.

The investigation has proved awkward as well for a group of conservative Republicans who held high-level civilian jobs at the Pentagon during President Bush's first term and the buildup toward the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and who were also close to AIPAC.

They were led by Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy defense secretary who has been named president of the World Bank. Franklin once worked in the office of one of Wolfowitz's allies, Douglas Feith, the undersecretary for policy at the Pentagon, who has also said he is leaving the administration later this year.

The New York Post reports that Mr. Franklin "coughed up" information about attacks on US troops in Iraq to two employees of AIPAC. The Post also notes, however, that this case bears little resemblance to more serious espionage cases such as the Jonathon Pollard case. Pollard was "an intelligence analyst for the Navy who pleaded guilty to spying for Israel in the 1980s."

Israel said Wednesday it has no involvement with Franklin and had received no secrets.

The Washington Post reports that law enforcement officials have said that one aspect of their investigations concern AIPAC, while the other aspect is "whether intelligence on Iran made it into the hands of [Iraqi dissident, former Pentagon favorite and now Iraqi cabinet minister] Ahmed Chalabi."

FBI counterintelligence investigators last year questioned current and former US officials about whether other Iran specialists at the Pentagon and in Vice President Cheney's office might have been involved in passing classified information to Chalabi or to AIPAC, sources have said.

Ha'aretz says, however, that the indictment still leaves three questions unresolved: "What information was transferred, what, if anything, are the AIPAC people suspected of, and if and how is Israel involved in the case."

The principal question is the second one – what was the role of 'US Person 1' and 'US Person 2,' as the two dismissed AIPAC officials who received information from Franklin, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, are referred to in the indictment.

FBI investigators go to great lengths in the indictment to explain that Franklin clearly told the two that the information was 'highly classified' and that he asked them not to use it. If the FBI has proof of this, it will make it very difficult for the AIPAC officials to defend themselves, as they cannot claim that they did not know what type of information they were receiving.

Rosen's imprint remains in substantial ways: Iran's threat to Israel, his top priority in recent years, is to be the centerpiece of this year's AIPAC's policy conference, which begins May 22. The conference will feature a walk-through exhibit on how close Iran is to developing a nuclear weapon.

Yet tactically Rosen's departure already is being felt as AIPAC returns to its roots, working Capitol Hill and moving away from the executive branch lobbying that was emblematic of Rosen's approach.

Also...
• Israeli MI chief: Israel is not facing existential nuclear threat today ( Ha'aretz)
• Army withheld details about Tillman's death ( Washington Post)

• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan .