Was Jonathan Pollard Another of
Tenet's "Mistakes"?
By Rabbi Pesach Lerner, Executive VP, National Council of Young Israel
Hamodia - July 25, 2003
A
recent Associated Press report stated that when the Bush
administration issued its pre-war claims that Iraq had sought uranium in
Africa,
the CIA had not yet obtained the documents that served as a key
foundation for the allegations and these documents later turned out to
be
forged......even as the CIA found little to verify the reports, Bush
administration officials repeatedly tried to put them into
public
statements.
Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), a former chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee-who has been a
long time critic of CIA chairman
George Tenet for failing to warn the United States of the potential 9/11
terror attacks-commented that
there was "not enough evidence to back up"
the President's comments that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from Africa.
Shelby said that most
of the blame should be directed at George Tenet,
director of the CIA since July 1997.
If there was "not enough evidence to back
up" the CIA claims in this
instance, one must wonder what else George Tenet and the CIA presented
as fact when, in reality, there was
"not enough evidence to back up"
their claims? One specific 'George Tenet and CIA action' does come to
mind---
In September
1998, during the Middle East Peace Talks at the Wye
Plantation in Maryland, George Tenet, as director of the CIA, told then
President
Clinton that he would resign if Clinton agreed to release
Jonathan Pollard from Federal Prison, where Pollard was (is) serving a
life
sentence for spying on behalf of Israel. This was after Clinton
personally guaranteed Pollard's release to then Israeli Prime
Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
One wonders, was there (and is there) "enough evidence" in the Pollard
case to merit such threats
from Tenet? Was (and is) the Pollard case
another situation that no one had "obtained the documents" and proof
about Pollard's
activities before making public statements?
Had everyone thoroughly checked the facts---
1) Pollard made 11 "drops"
and all the material fit into a small
briefcase -not enough material to fill a large moving van, as was being
claimed.
2)
Pollard -we now know - never had the security clearance which
would have been required to enter the file room and the security safe
to
obtain the code books he supposedly took or much of the intelligence
information he supposedly obtained.
3) The
damage that Pollard supposedly caused was, in truth, caused
by Aldrich Ames, a senior CIA official and Pollard's superior, and by
Robert
Hanssen, a senior FBI official. (In fact, once these two spies
were caught and the damaged they caused realized, why didn't the
proper
authorities revisit the Pollard case and admit that Pollard was indicted
and convicted for a crime he did not
commit?)
4) Pollard never had a trial. At the request of the United States
government, Pollard entered into a plea agreement
and cooperated
fully. Nevertheless, Pollard received a life sentence and a
recommendation that he never be paroled - in complete
violation of the
plea agreement. The Pollard case, is a case of gross
injustices-including a grossly disproportionate sentence, use of
secret
evidence, a false charge of treason, ineffective assistance of counsel,
a lack of due process, serious government misconduct,
etc. Years after
his sentencing, Pollard filed a habeas corpus challenge to the sentence.
In a dissenting opinion, Court of Appeals Judge
Stephen Williams called
the case "a fundamental miscarriage of justice," and wrote that he would
have ordered that Pollard's sentence be
vacated.
5) The average prison term for "spying for a friendly country with
no intent to harm the United States" normally
carries a prison sentence
of 2 - 4 years. Pollard is now serving his 18th year of a life sentence.
It is due time for all
justice-seeking individuals to publicly challenge
George Tenet and the CIA-and the entire intelligence community--on the
Pollard case.
What proof was (and is) there to validate the charges
against Pollard. What developments have (and are) been ignored. We must
raise our
voices in protest. We must insist on the evidence to back up
their charges. We must demand that Pollard finally receive the due
process
he has been denied for so long. -30-
Bio Note:
Rabbi Pesach Lerner is Executive Vice-President, National Council of
Young
Israel. Rabbi Lerner and the National Council of Young Israel have
taken a leading activist role in the efforts to free Jonathan
Pollard.
Rabbi Lerner visits Pollard often and speaks with him weekly.
See also:
The Wye Double Cross
The Truth About Jonathan Pollard
Terror in the US and the JOnathan Pollard Case
The Facts of the Pollard Case
