U.S. defense analyst accused of leaks

WASHINGTON — A Defense Department policy analyst has been charged with disclosing classified information related to potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, the Justice Department announced yesterday.

Lawrence Franklin, 58, made the unauthorized disclosure to two pro-Israeli lobbyists while having lunch at a restaurant in Arlington, Va., in 2003, according to court documents and law-enforcement sources. Franklin also gave classified information to a foreign official and unidentified members of the media, and 83 classified documents dating back three decades were found in a search of his West Virginia home, the documents stated.

Court documents did not identify to whom Franklin gave information at the lunch, but law-enforcement sources said it was two top officials with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of Washington's most influential lobbying organizations. The officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, recently left their jobs amid what sources have said is a long-running FBI investigation into whether they passed classified U.S. data to the Israeli government. It remains unclear whether any classified information reached Israel.

Justice Department officials would not elaborate on the possible attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, but law-enforcement sources said they would have been carried out by Iran. At the time, in the summer of 2003, the U.S. government said publicly that it was concerned about Iranian activities in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion that year. But that concern has since abated, and defense officials yesterday said there have been no reported attacks by Iranian forces in Iraq.

An FBI agent's affidavit that accompanied the criminal complaint against Franklin does not suggest that the disclosure endangered U.S. troops, but said intelligence sources could have been compromised.

There is no allegation of espionage by Franklin. He faces a single count of disclosing classified defense information, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said his country was not involved.

"Israel does not carry on any activity in the United States which could harm, God forbid, its closest ally," Shalom told Israel's Channel One TV.

Franklin appeared yesterday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., where a judge released him on a $100,000 personal-recognizance bond. An attorney for Franklin, John Richards, said Franklin intends to plead not guilty. "He will vigorously defend himself, and we expect he will be exonerated by the judicial process," Richards said.

An attorney for Rosen, Abbe Lowell, issued a statement saying, "Steve Rosen never solicited, received or passed on any classified documents from Larry Franklin, and Mr. Franklin will never be able to say otherwise." He did not elaborate. John Nassikas, an attorney for Weissman, declined to comment. AIPAC officials also declined to comment.

The unveiling of the charges yesterday provided a glimpse of a highly publicized investigation that has touched numerous political and diplomatic hot buttons.

The investigation was first disclosed last summer, when sources said the FBI was investigating whether Franklin had provided a draft presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC, and whether AIPAC passed the information to Israel.

AIPAC has mounted an aggressive defense and last year told supporters that the "very essence" of the U.S.-Israeli relationship was under assault because of the investigation. It also caused an uproar in the Jewish community, especially among wealthy political donors.

Law-enforcement sources have said one aspect of the probe concerns AIPAC, and another concerns whether intelligence on Iran made it into the hands of Ahmad Chalabi, now one of Iraq's deputy prime ministers, who was a Pentagon favorite before the invasion but fell out of favor over accusations that he leaked intelligence to Iran and supplied flawed evidence that Saddam Hussein was hoarding weapons of mass destruction.

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