A Web Of Intrigue

• Share

It was a hot, late August afternoon when the Iraqi exile got a call on his cell phone. Over the crackling line, the Iraqi says, the caller identified himself as Larry Franklin, an analyst for the Defense Department in Washington. Franklin rattled off a series of questions. He wanted to know if the Iraqi, who had spent the past decade working with Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (I.N.C.), could recall whether anyone at the I.N.C. had discussed the U.S.'s ability to intercept and decode Iran's secret communications. The Iraqi, who knew Franklin's name but had never met him, was startled by the call. "How about discussing Iranian codes with a drunken American? Had anyone ever done that?" Franklin wanted to know. For nearly half an hour, Franklin quizzed him about Pentagon officials and Iranian spycraft. "That was really scary," recalls the Iraqi. "I told him, 'I don't remember anything.'"

That phone call, which the Iraqi described to TIME last week, seems to be an indication that two complicated spy cases have become linked. Several weeks ago, according to federal law-enforcement officials, Franklin, who had been under investigation by the FBI for giving classified information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), agreed to cooperate in a probe into whether the pro-Israel group was passing sensitive U.S. secrets to Israel. Franklin's call to the ex-I.N.C. man, who has provided TIME with credible information in the past, suggests that Franklin was also assisting the FBI in a separate inquiry into how highly classified details of America's ability to decode Iranian intelligence messages may have fallen into the hands of Chalabi's organization and been passed on to Iran in February. A U.S. law-enforcement official confirms that the Iraqi's account of the conversation is consistent with the types of calls Franklin was making on behalf of the FBI.

According to law-enforcement officials, Franklin began cooperating with the FBI after agents first confronted him with evidence that he had given classified material to AIPAC, one of Washington's most powerful lobbying organizations. Israel and AIPAC have denied the spy allegations; neither the Pentagon nor Franklin would comment. The law-enforcement officials say Franklin was persuaded in recent weeks to make "pretext calls"--scripted conversations monitored by FBI agents and designed to tease out incriminating evidence about other suspects. It was within this time frame that Franklin approached the ex-I.N.C. official who spoke to TIME.