Spy games, Friday, October 07, 2005

Yedioth Ahronoth was reporting on walkouts at the Mossad, where Meir Dagan’s management style has apparently alienated several top-tier players who run major departments in the Israeli spy service. Dagan, a Sharon appointee, is known for his gung ho, activist approach, preferring daring do operations to the kind of quiet intelligence gathering that was the hallmark of his predecessor, Ephraim Halevy.

According to the Yedioth report, the Mossad chief and the head of Military Intelligence do not speak with each other. Among those who have announced they are quitting are H., ‘the kibbutznik,’ who was the number three in the agency. He previously headed the agency’s department for assassinations, Kidon, and then Caesarea, the department that oversees operations. He’s apparently slighted that he’s not getting what he was promised – the number two slot, and says the newspaper, he’s angry at Dagan’s leadership which H says has soured relations with foreign agencies.

The number 2 man in the agency, says the report, which identifies him only as T., ‘the bulldozer,’ is also leaving and because he’s going, an important appointment he made to the head of the ‘light operations’ directorate might also be quitting.

According to the newspaper, two weeks ago the head of Tevel, the main liaison directorate with foreign intelligence agencies announced his resignation, and that resignation was also seen as a vote of no confidence in Dagan, who has enjoyed Sharon’s trust since the pre-Yom Kippur War era when Sharon was the Southern Front commander and Dagan a commander in Gaza, rooting out terrorism.

Dagan himself, says the report, has not had much confidence in many of the top tier commanders in the spy agency, replacing some when he first came on board with past officials, and turning to MI and various army intelligence gathering units, such as Unit 8200, to recruit their commanders – but to no avail. Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Gilad, now working as head of the Political-Security Department in the Defense Ministry, a job tailor made for him by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, has also reportedly turned down a Dagan request that he come on board at the agency.

The trials and tribulations in the agency come at an awkward time, when Syria and Iran, the two foreign countries that most worry Israel, are being targeted by the U.S. as ‘evil.’ Furthermore, while the Larry Franklin case, in which the Pentagon analyst confessed handing over classified information to AIPAC officials – and to meeting regularly with Israeli embassy officials, was not a Mossad operation, it reflects badly on the organization that it either did not know about Franklin’s activities or if it did, did nothing to warn off the AIPAC and embassy officials.

As usual in Israel, reporting about the spy agency is oblique, and as of eleven this morning, neither Israel Radio nor Army Radio was picking up the story, which led Yedioth’s front page. Still, reporter Ronen Bergman has been credible in the past – though occasionally exaggerates the importance of the spy stories he tells. If he’s right this time, as prime minister, Sharon has one more headache to deal with.

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