author Ron Suskind connects the transfer of intelligence from the FBI

to the Shin Bet with several targeted assassinations carried out by

Israel during this period.

Suskind, who is considered a reliable journalist, describes how major

private companies cooperated with government agencies such as the FBI,

the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Treasury to monitor

communications and financial transfers after September 11, in

operations of questionable legality.

The FBI's most important connection during this period was with First

Data, an Omaha-based electronic fund transfer company with a global

reach. The company offered to assist the U.S. government in the war

against terror.

FBI Financial Crimes Section chief Dennis Lormel and his colleagues at

other intelligence agencies eventually realized that the information

supplied by the company could be used not only to locate and freeze

the assets of terror groups, but also to track them in real time - in

other words, to follow the money trail directly to the sources and

destinations of the funds.

First Data subsidiary Western Union, with branches throughout the Arab

world and a high volume of money transfers, was in a perfect position

to help. American intelligence agents and company officials cooperated

in tracking the data trail and in monitoring security cameras

installed in Western Union branches in order to see who was picking up

the funds.

According to the book, then Shin Bet head Avi Dichter, whom Suskind

calls an agent of change in the U.S. war against terror, was briefed

by Lormel on the new monitoring capabilities during one of his

frequent visits to Washington.

In April 2003, Dichter called Lormel to ask for the FBI's help in this

regard. Dichter told officials that the Shin Bet had information about

a courier who was expected to be bringing money to Israel from Lebanon

shortly. The source of the money was known, but not the identity of

the person for whom its was destined.

In early April, 2003, an Islamic Jihad activist went to a Western

Union office in Lebanon and ordered a money transfer to Hebron. The

Justice Department authorized Western Union to release this

information to the FBI and the CIA, and eventually to the Shin Bet.

According to Suskind, all this took just minutes, enabling Israeli

intelligence to track the person who collected the transfer in Hebron

and to uncover the terror cell.

According to the book, this method was used successfully many times

over the next year and a half, until autumn 2004, when Palestinian

operatives realized that their Western Union transfers were being used

to trap them.

Dichter told Haaretz on Wednesday that he has never spoken with Suskind.

Intelligence cooperation between the U.S. and Israel has increased

over the past several years, but until now, Israel's use of

information from American companies had been kept secret.

The Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives

approved a bill last week aimed at further increasing intelligence

ties with Israel and other countries by establishing a new office for

international cooperation programs within the Department of Homeland

Security.

This atmosphere of cooperation, Suskind states in his book, has

reinforced the sense that President George Bush wants to assist Israel

and was not disturbed by the military operations that Ariel Sharon's

government authorized in the territories. Suskind quotes Bush as

saying during his first National Security Council meeting that the

U.S. must refrain from active mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict.

To then secretary of state Colin Powell's argument that such behavior

could be interpreted by Sharon's government as a green light to apply

force, Bush responded that sometimes a show of force can clarify the

issue at hand.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13808.htm