IntelNews – by JOSEPH FITSANAKIS
The supreme official of the United States Department of Defense has said he is “unaware of the facts” behind recent media reports that Israel is aggressively spying on America.
Chuck Hagel, a former Republican Senator who assumed the leadership of the Pentagon in 2013, is on a three-day official visit to Israel, where he is scheduled to hold meetings with Israeli military and security officials. He was responding to a question posed by an Israeli reporter about allegations, made by American newsmagazine Newsweek on Tuesday, that Israel’s spies “have gone too far” in targeting American interests.
In an article published in Newsweek last week, veteran intelligence correspondent Jeff Stein quoted Congressional staffers as saying that America’s Jewish allies had “crossed red lines” in their efforts to steal secrets from the United States. According to Stein, that was reportedly relayed to US lawmakers in classified briefings on Capitol Hill by officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, as well as the National Counterintelligence Directorate.
In a subsequent piece, Stein revealed that Israeli intelligence tried to spy on US Vice President Al Gore during an official state visit to Jerusalem 16 years ago. The effort was allegedly aborted after a US Secret Service agent caught an Israeli spy trying to enter the Vice President’s hotel room through a ceiling vent.
But American officials have so far remained silent on the matter. When asked about it a press conference in Tel Aviv, Hagel said he had “heard of the report” but was “not aware of any facts that would substantiate the report”. He was standing beside Israel’s Minister of Defense, Moshe Yaalon, who also responded to the journalist’s question by reminding his audience that he served as Director of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate in the late 1990s.
In that capacity, he said, he was “not allowed to spy in the United States whatsoever”. He added that, today, as Minister of Defense, he doesn’t allow Israel’s military personnel “to spy in the United States whatsoever”.
The two men spent much of the press conference pronouncing what they described as the “extremely strong bond” between the United States and Israel. Secretary Hagel also spoke extensively about the record levels of American military aid that has been given to Israel during the period of the administration of US President Barack Obama. Israel has vehemently denied the allegations made in the Newsweek report.
Chuck Bagel is so full of it his eyes are turning brown….
-flek
So Chucky lies about other thing too. Imagine that.
Wow.. The US Secretary of Defense must really have his head up his ass, because everyone else on the planet is aware of it.
Ludicrous, is it not?
This is in the news, that in and of itself makes it suspect to be part of some kind of campaign or other. Hard as it may be to swallow the fact is that anything related to global spying making it to the (k)news is most likely faked-up or at least very old news.