http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/05/21/stifgnusa02003.html
May 21 2000 UNITED STATES
Business as usual: Clinton with Barak. They meet this week despite
claims of Israeli spying
Photograph: Ralph Alswang
Israeli spies tapped Clinton e-mail
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
MORE than 20 years of Israeli spying operations in Washington
culminated in the interception of e-mails from President Bill
Clinton, intelligence sources claimed last week.
The revelations come at a sensitive time as Ehud Barak, the
Israeli prime minister, is ex-pected to fly to Washington today
for talks with Clinton about the Middle East peace process.
The latest spying operation is said to have taken place in 1998
while Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister.
According to the sources, it entailed hacking into White House
computer systems during intense speculation about the direction
of the peace process.
Sources in Israel say intelligence agents infiltrated Telrad, a
company that had been subcontracted by Nortel, America's
largest telecommunications conglomerate, to help develop a
communications system for the White House.
Company managers were said to have been unaware that
virtually undetectable chips installed during manufacture made it
possible for outside agents to tap into the flow of data from the
White House.
Information being sent from the president to his senior staff in the
National Security Council and outside government departments
could be copied into a secret Israeli computer in Washington, the
sources said. It was transferred to Tel Aviv two or three times a
week.
One opportunity for Israeli agents to mount the operation arose
when Nortel, Telrad and another firm won a £33m contract to
replace communications equipment for the Israeli air force.
Members of the air force were allowed access to manufacturing
areas as a result.
Company and White House Officials last week denied any
knowledge of the intelligence operation. "We have no
information that our phone system has been compromised," said
Jake Siewert, the deputy White House press secretary.
An Israeli government official said that Mossad, the country's
intelligence service, was banned from conducting illicit
surveillance in America. "Spying on the US is out of the
question," he said.
However, the FBI has conducted a highly classified investigation
into previous claims that Israeli intelligence has breached White
House security.
The inquiry was revealed earlier this month by the Washington
Times Insight magazine, which reported that Israeli agents used
a software company in Missouri to intercept telephone
conversations from the White House, State Department and
other departments.
The FBI inquiry began some years ago after an investigation by
the State Department led to suspicions that Israel might have the
technology to overhear the conversations of American officials
in their offices.
It shifted to the White House in September 1998 when Kenneth
Starr, the independent prosecutor, reported that the Israelis may
have listened to amorous conversations between Clinton and
Monica Lewinsky, the White House trainee with whom he had
an affair. The allegation was denied by both Israel and the United
States.
Both countries have been wary of the harm that could be caused
by Israeli intelligence operations since Jonathan Pollard, a former
American navy analyst, was jailed for spying for Israel in 1986.
Sources familiar with past operations, however, said penetration
of the White House was considered so secret that even some
members of Mossad's hierarchy were not informed.
They cited at least three occasions on which Israel had
monitored the White House, starting shortly after Gerald Ford
became president in 1974.
A source who participated in the infiltration of Ford's White
House said the Israelis were interested in American plans to sell
the Awacs early warning aircraft to Saudi Arabia, a prospect
that would have allowed the desert kingdom to monitor Israeli air
force activity throughout the Middle East.
During the Carter administration, agents targeted Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the national security adviser, who was considered
anti-Israeli. This operation is said to have been conducted by a
Mossad burglary unit known as Keshet (Arrow).
A third operation straddled President Ronald Reagan's second
term and the early years of his successor, George Bush. The
target was James Baker, the former White House chief of staff
and secretary of state who was considered pro-Arab.
Additional reporting: Tom Rhodes, New York
