According to William Safire “walking back the cat” is a technique used to determine dissent in an otherwise closed government.
Intelligence analysts have a technique to reveal a foreign government’s internal dissension called ”walking back the cat.” They apply what they now know as fact against what their agents said to expect. In that way, walkers-back learn who ”disinformed” or whose mistake may reveal a split in a seemingly monolithic hierarchy.
While I don’t pretend I have all the information a real intelligence analyst would have and I’m not trying to show dissent, two recent news events in the Middle East lend themselves to this sort of analysis. On Sept 6 Israeli planes attacked a target in Syria. Originally there was speculation that the site could have been a nuclear site.
Initially, I rejected that explanation because there was no previous evidence of a Syrian nuclear program. In the past few weeks, it seems that my instincts were wrong as the few details that emerged confirmed that the initial fears were correct and that the site was a nuclear site.
Two weeks ago the Syrian government showed journalists an agricultural research center that had been photographed by Israeli journalist Ron Ben Yishai to “prove” that there had been no Israeli raid and no nuclear facility. The denial was important as Ben Yishai claimed that he had seen – but not photographed – craters behind the center that would be consistent with bomb damage.
Last week there were two important follow ups to the story. The Washington Post reported on Friday that Syria was cleaning up the site that was bombed.
Syria has begun dismantling the remains of a site Israel bombed Sept. 6 in what may be an attempt to prevent the location from coming under international scrutiny, said U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the aftermath of the attack. Based on overhead photography, the officials say the site in Syria’s eastern desert near the Euphrates River had a “signature” or characteristics of a small but substantial nuclear reactor, one similar in structure to North Korea’s facilities. The dismantling of the damaged site, which appears to be still underway, could make it difficult for weapons inspectors to determine the precise nature of the facility and how Syria planned to use it. Syria, which possesses a small reactor used for scientific research, has denied seeking to expand its nuclear program. But U.S. officials knowledgeable about the Israeli raid have described the target as a nuclear facility being constructed with North Korean assistance. The bombed facility is different from the one Syria displayed to journalists last week to back its allegations that Israel had bombed an essentially an empty building, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity because details of the Israeli attack are classified.
What’s interesting here is that the article essentially confirms the Israeli fear that Syria had been building a nuclear facility and that most administration officials believed that too. The argument is about how immediate the threat was to Israel and if working through the IAEA was a better way of dealing with it.
But also by reporting that the facility was not the same one shown to journalists the week before, it shows that Ron Ben Yishai’s claims were false. One possibility is that he was eager for a scoop so he claimed to see bomb damage. The other possibility was that Ben Yishai was bluffing. He knew it wasn’t the site of the Israeli raid, but he figured that if he mad the claim it would force certain aspects of the story into the open. I’m guessing the latter. And if so, he was correct.
Because ABC News last week also reported something incredible: Israel possibly had a spy inside the targeted facility, who provided photographs of the target.
But the hardest evidence of all was the photographs. The official described the pictures as showing a big cylindrical structure, with very thick walls all well-reinforced. The photos show rebar hanging out of the cement used to reinforce the structure, which was still under construction. There was also a secondary structure and a pump station, with trucks around it. But there was no fissionable material found because the facility was not yet operating. The official said there was a larger structure just north of a small pump station; a nuclear reactor would need a constant source of water to keep it cool. The official said the facility was a North Korean design in its construction, the technology present and the ability to put it all together. It was North Korean “expertise,” said the official, meaning the Syrians must have had “human” help from North Korea. A light water reactor designed by North Koreans could be constructed to specifically produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Usually when Israel makes a claim against its enemies, we’ll see a lot of bureaucratic infighting as to how accurate Israel’s intelligence is.
Last week’s Washington Post and ABC stories suggest that Israel’s intelligence has convinced the administration of the Syrian efforts to build a nuclear facility. The split in the administration was how immediate the threat was and what the best course would have been. Israel, of course, mooted that discussion by destroying the facility.
The other fantastic story to emerge from Israel last week was that Prime Minister Olmert was the target of a Palestinian assassination plot by elements within the “moderate” Fatah party. Initially reports suggested that PM Olmert was targeted when he actually visited Jericho in August.
However what’s emerged is that the attack was planned for his originally scheduled trip there in June. The plotters were jailed but then reportedly released, leading PM Olmert to be quoted saying that he felt “discomfort” over the Palestinian reaction. (Yes the term “discomfort” has been removed from the Jerusalem Post’s website with no explanation, but it had been there earlier.)
So the question is why did Israel wait so long to release information about the planned hit on its leader? After making it clear that Olmert wanted the information out in the open the Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon writes:
Olmert and his office had nothing much to say about the revelations on Sunday. But then again, they didn’t need to. Once the information was released that Fatah officers had tried to kill the prime minister and that the Palestinian Authority then let the suspects go, nothing more needed to be said – the story took on a dynamic of its own. Voices were immediately raised – from NU/NRP’s Zvi Hendel on the Right to Labor’s Danny Yatom in the Center – calling for Olmert to call off the Annapolis meeting, arguing that this incident showed that not only was Abbas’s security control of the West Bank tenuous, but that the revolving door policy whereby security prisoners were picked up for show and then released shortly thereafter was not a memory from the Yasser Arafat days, but was alive and kicking in Abbas’s new and improved PA. Furthermore, the argument was made that if Abbas’s security forces didn’t know about this plan, what did it say about those forces, upon which any agreement with the Palestinians would be based? Also, if Abbas didn’t know that the men were released from jail, what did that say about his control? In short, the whole episode raised serious questions about the astuteness of the entire Annapolis process, and the wisdom of placing the country’s eggs in Abbas’s basket.
Keinon concludes
Revelation of the plot now provides Olmert with a precious commodity in his negotiations: room to maneuver.
But if Keinon views this revelation as a shrewd move on the part of PM Olmert, Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel of Ha’aretz see mistakes all around.
Nobody comes out of this story looking good – not the Palestinian Authority, members of whose security forces planned to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; not Israel, which decided Sunday to air a four-month-old affair, perhaps to score points ahead of Olmert’s European tour and the Annapolis conference; not Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin, who appears to have given the cabinet a partially erroneous report. Not even the assassins themselves, who were hoping somehow to pierce the prime minister’s armored car using 7.62-caliber bullets.
It’s unclear in the article what exactly Diskin got wrong or how Israel comes out looking bad. Apparently what Diskin got wrong was that the plotters were not far along in their plot.
The assassination itself was evidently nipped in the bud. Olmert’s June visit never took place, for unrelated reasons. By the time he visited Jericho in August, the five cell members were jailed, three in the PA and two in Israel. And while the security service men had professional knowledge of the travel route and security arrangements, they did not have a plan that would put Olmert in real jeopardy (as Public Security Minister Avi Dichter conceded Sunday).
As far as the release of the plotters, Harel and Issacharoff raise doubts if it happened. (Members of the Ha’aretz staff were granted a request to see the plotters in jail on Sunday.) But in the end they strongly suggest that the re-incarceration of the plotters may well have been for show.
When Dichter headed the Shin Bet, he was fond of an anecdote that demonstrated the revolving-door policy: British intelligence agent Alistair Crooke was invited by the PA to Bethlehem in the fall of 2001 to debunk Israeli allegations about murderers being released. Crooke visited a Tanzim terrorist, Ataf Abiat, at the Bethlehem offices of the security services. But after his visit Crooke lurked at an observation point and within a short while saw Abiat coming out of “detention” and continuing on his way (the wanted gunman was liquidated by the Shin Bet a few days later). Did the PA play the “Crooke trick” on Haaretz staff on Sunday? Only a few minutes elapsed between the request to see the detainees and the jail visit – and numerous Palestinian sources confirm that two cell members were rearrested last Friday. Yet Sunday evening Israeli defense officials could not say whether and when the two had been rearrested.
Some Palestinian officials cast doubts on the Israeli charges. For example:
In an interview with Al Kuds, published in east Jerusalem, Tirawi blamed Israeli officials of blowing the case out of proportion in an attempt to hide Israel’s actions and plans regarding the Palestinians and the peace process.
It’s hard to tell here if the Israelis are overstating the case. It would seem that the main Israeli concern is not the plot, but the Palestinian reaction to the plot. (Say the men had been accused of helping Israel kill a terrorist leader. They’d have been taken from jail and lynched by now. Instead they have been in – and out of – jail with little to suggest that there’s been any sort of an investigation or that legal proceedings have been begun against them.)
Isabel Kershner’s report in the NY Times seems to confirm that Israel was less concerned with the plot than the release:
The time of the original arrests was unclear, but they were apparently made near the time of the planned meeting, perhaps even before it was to take place. The episode, obviously embarrassing for Mr. Abbas, had been kept quiet and might not have been disclosed at all had it not been for the Palestinian Authority’s early release of the suspects. The chief of the General Intelligence Service of the Palestinian Authority, Gen. Tawfiq Tirawi, said in a statement that the Israeli reports should not be considered a “pretext†for suspending the Israeli-Palestinian talks. Mr. Regev said that Ms. Livni had already raised with American officials “the issue of the revolving door.†He was referring to what Israel said was the Palestinian Authority’s practice of taking suspects into custody at Israel’s request and quietly releasing them soon after.
So what do we have? Apparently Syria was in the early stages of constructing a nuclear facility with North Korean help. Israel destroyed that facility in September. And in June a plot to assassinate PM Olmert was discovered. Israel hid the revelation so as not to embarrass Presdient Abbas, until now, when it suited Israel to help its negotiating position in Annapolis next month.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
