Posted Thursday, November 5, 1998

AR-Online Special

British Member of Parliament drops bombshell: Four Israeli spies were on UN inspection team! [*] BY OUR SPECIAL NEWS MONITOR John Ball   LONDON, NOV. 3 -- As the United Nations pulls its inspectors out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a British Member of Parliament has revealed that four of the former U.N. inspectors were agents of The Mossad, Israel's vaunted secret service. Scott Ritter, the former head of inspections, has also admitted having worked for Israeli intelligence. During a verbal clash in Parliament, Labour's George Galloway stated that Colonel Khadouri, Colonel Rabscon, Lieutenant Shamani, and Jador Dalal worked under false names and passports with the UNSCOM team as agents of Mossad, the Israeli secret service. A fifth spy was former UNSCOM chief inspector Scott Ritter, who admitted after resigning that he worked with Israeli intelligence while deputy head of the UN mission in Baghdad. Ritter also revealed that UNSCOM received substantial aid from Mossad. Galloway also said that a very senior official of the UN who had known of U.N. inspector Richard Butler for decades said that Butler was "a congenital liar". For eight years the U.N. has justified its debilitating trade blockade of Iraq, which is killing thousands of Iraqis, by accusing Iraq of lying about hidden weapons and chemical factories. The revelation that four U.N. inspectors had acted throughout as Israeli spies, equipped with pseudonyms and false passports, threatens to expose the United Nations as the hypocritical lapdog of an anti-Arab oligarchy which has lied to the world about Iraq.    * Note that HM Government denies this. See the brief item by the BBC, which also reported that foreign secretary Robin Cook had dismissed Mr Galloway's claims. (To which we comment: "Mandy Rice-Davies!" British readers will get the point). The BBC did however report on the close cooperation existing between the UN inspectors and the Mossad.-- Your Webmaster.

Our opinion THE U.N.'s sanctimonious claim to have a monopoly on the truth in the Middle East crisis has been seriously compromised by this astounding revelation. Even more inexplicable: that so little has been made of it in the world's press.

In a related story we learn from the Canadian Press agency that ...

November 3, 1998 Israeli secret service still using Canadian passports TORONTO (CP) -- Israel's secret service still appears to be using Canadian passports for its covert operations, despite promises it would stop doing so, CTV's W-Five said in a report broadcast Tuesday night. Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy is expected to comment on the report today. In a statement released Tuesday night the government said: "Minister Axworthy takes these assertions very seriously. He has instructed his officials to immediately review the claims made in the W-Five report." But Leslie Lewis, a dual Canadian-Israeli citizen who moved from Vancouver to Israel in 1991, says Canadian authorities don't appear to be too concerned. Ottawa's ambassador to Israel, David Berger, insists the Israelis are keeping their promise. But Lewis, 55, told W-Five he informed Canadian authorities the Mossad approached him as recently as last February about getting its hands on a Canadian passport. Lewis's involvement with the Mossad began in 1996, when he turned over his expired Canadian passport after the spy agency told him "they wanted to get oppressed Jews in oppressed countries out of these countries." In September 1997, Israeli agents were caught after a bungled assassination attempt of a prominent Palestinian leader in neighbouring Jordan. The agents were carrying doctored Canadian passports, causing a major diplomatic ruckus between Canada and Israel. In November 1997, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy promised his Canadian counterpart, Lloyd Axworthy, that Israel would not use Canadian passports again. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also told his secret service that Canadian passports were off-limits. But within weeks, the Mossad asked Lewis again for his new passport, a request he refused. And last February, it asked yet again, this time about getting his daughter to apply for a Canadian passport so she could turn it over. Lewis told W-Five he also knows of a case in which the Mossad approached another Canadian in April and was given a passport. He said he reported the incidents to the Canadian embassy.

Thursday, November 05, 1998 Israel denies passport claims No Approach Made: Canadian claims Mossad wanted document; CSIS found no evidence Israel is vehemently denying allegations its secret service is using Canadian passports and the Canadian government is downplaying the claims, but a former Canadian spy expert says it would be naive to think this kind of trade in documentation isn't commonplace in covert operations around the world. "Travel documents are the currency of cover in foreign intelligence," said David Harris, former chief of strategic planning at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. "This is a reality out there." He wasn't surprised by this week's claims of a Canadian now living in Israel that he had been approached by Israeli intelligence officials for his passport. The claims, televised in a CTV news report Tuesday, have caused an international stir because they come more than a year after Israel vowed publicly it would no longer use Canadian passports in its covert operations. That promise came after two Mossad agents were caught with Canadian passports in a bungled assassination attempt. David Bar-Illan, media advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, reacted angrily yesterday to a televised report documenting the claims of Leslie Lewis, an Hasidic Jew living in Jerusalem. Calling the W-FIVE report "absolutely despicable" and "irresponsible journalism," he said he hoped he could undo any serious damage done. "It's given Israel very bad publicity as a country that does not keep its word." He said Mr. Lewis may have been the victim of some kind of imposter, but he was certainly not approached by any sanctioned agents of Israeli intelligence. Lloyd Axworthy, Canada's foreign affairs minister, said the official investigation into Mr. Lewis' claims were hampered by the man's original desire to remain anonymous. "It's pretty hard to do an investigation if you have to identify an unnamed source. He seems to have gone public recently, but that's a choice he makes," Mr. Axworthy said yesterday. He maintained that the man's claims were aggressively investigated by CSIS, the embassy and passport consular officials, but ultimately dismissed. "Frankly, the information that came back was that his assertions could not be corroborated," Mr. Axworthy said. "It was as simple as that." Even though there was no evidence to support the allegations, Mr. Axworthy admitted that there was also no way of knowing for sure that Mossad had not tried again to obtain Canadian passports. Mr. Harris, who now runs an Ottawa-based foreign intelligence service, says no one involved in intelligence would have seriously expected the practice to stop when Israel gave its assurances a year ago. "I can understand our government accepting Israeli assurances, but it would be unforgivable if they believed it." He said any serious foreign intelligence service would understandably lust after identification documents because they can be used in so many ways.

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