Tenet accused of lying in memoirs
Former CIA chief claims he nixed deal to free Jonathan Pollard
www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55542
By Aaron Klein - WorldNetDaily.com - May 4, 2007

JERUSALEM - Former CIA Director George Tenet's claim that he is responsible
for nixing a deal to free imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard has been
contradicted by a number of sources, including some who say Tenet personally
told them otherwise.

In his recently released memoirs, "At The Eye of the Storm," Tenet asserts
he prevented the release of Pollard during the U.S.-backed Wye River
negotiations in 1998 in which then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
ultimately agreed to withdraw from parts of the West Bank and free 750
Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.

The talks were brokered by President Bill Clinton, who promised he would
free Pollard if Netanyahu signed the deal. According to Netanyahu and former
Israeli Cabinet Secretary Dan Naveh, as well as public on-record statements
of key Wye participants, Pollard's promised release was as an integral part
of Israel's signing the accords.

Tenets writes he told Clinton he would resign if Pollard were freed,
explaining his personal prestige would be damaged since his CIA colleagues
would assume he helped to broker the deal.

"If Pollard was in the final package deal, no one at CIA headquarters would
believe I had nothing to do with it," wrote Tenet in his memoirs.

He wrote his career would be "destroyed" if he agreed to the release of
Pollard.

But Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, previously told media he
received a phone call from Tenet immediately after the Wye deal was signed
in which Tenet denied he had ever threatened to resign if Pollard were
freed.

"He truly was very emotional and very upset about it," Hoenlein said. "He
said that was not the way he did things, and from our experience, that was
not the way he did things."

Tenet's version of events are also contradicted by former U.S. envoy to the
Middle East Dennis Ross, who played a key role in Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations in which Pollard's release was reportedly pledged.

In his book, "The Missing Peace," Ross writes that at the Wye summit,
Clinton asked him if freeing Pollard would be important to Israel.

"Yes," Ross writes he replied, "because he is considered a soldier for
Israel, and there is an ethos in Israel that you never leave a soldier
behind in the field."

But Ross writes he cautioned the president against releasing Pollard until
greater concessions from Israel could be secured during final status talks.

"[Pollard's release] would be a huge payoff [for Israel]; you don't have
many like it in your pocket ... You will need it later, don't use it now,"
writes Ross.

Israeli sources close to the Wye Accords told WND Clinton took Ross' advice
but needed an excuse to break his promise to free Pollard. The sources claim
Clinton orchestrated Tenet's threat to resign, which became a plausible
explanation for not releasing Pollard.

Pollard's wife, Esther, told WND: "When Clinton reneged on the U.S.
commitment to free Jonathan as an integral part of the Wye accords, an
excuse was fabricated claming Tenet threatened to resign. This was not only
untrue, it was a ridiculous excuse. Its implausibility was vividly
demonstrated a few months later when Clinton freed FALN terrorists over
Tenets' vehement objections and actual threat to resign."

Pollard was referring to Clinton's releasing in 1999 of 14 members of the
Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puerto Rican terror group over the
objections of the president's cabinet, Congress, Senate and a threat by
Tenet to resign. Tenet ultimately didn't step down.

Naveh, who was a high-ranking Israeli official at Wye, said Clinton's pledge
to free Pollard was not a personal promise made to a particular prime
minister. ... This was a promise made to the state of Israel and to the
people of Israel."

Larry Dub, Pollard's Jerusalem attorney, called Clinton's pledge at Wye
"binding upon successive administrations until fulfilled."

'Twenty-two years in prison is a long time'

From his prison cell in Butner, N.C., Jonathan Pollard relayed his response
to Tenet's book to WND:
"A decade has passed since Wye. Ross has publicly called for my release in
recent months; so has former head of the CIA James Woolsey. Twenty-two years
in prison is a long time.

"At this late date, it is essentially irrelevant that Clinton sought an
excuse to renege at Wye so that he could play the Pollard card again at a
later date, and Tenet became the excuse, not the reason for keeping me in
prison. Tenet apparently still wants to save face by playing along. The only
thing that is relevant now is that the on-going injustice - holding me in
prison because I am regarded as a high value bargaining chip - be addressed
and rectified without any further delay

"My release ought to be a matter of principle - of justice and of due
process - and it ought to reflect the honor and integrity of the U.S.-Israel
special relationship. Israel has already paid for my release at Wye. It is
time to collect it."

Pollard, an Israeli agent who worked as a civilian intelligence analyst for
the U.S. Navy, was arrested in 1985 and indicted of one count of passing
classified information to an ally, Israel. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment in spite of a plea agreement that was to spare him a life term.

Pollard's sentence is considered by many to be disproportionate to the crime
for which he was convicted - he is the only person in the history of the
U.S. to receive a life sentence for spying for an ally. The median sentence
for the offense is two to four years.

The unprecedented sentence was largely thought to have been driven by a
last-minute secret memorandum from Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger,
in which he accused Pollard of treason - a crime for which he was never
indicted - and claimed Pollard harmed America's national security.

But even Weinberger, who died last year, conceded just prior to his death
the sentence may be about something else.
Weinberger said the Pollard issue "is a very minor matter, but made very
important. ... It was made far bigger than its actual importance."

Pollard previously told WND the information he passed to Israel forewarned
the Jewish state about the build-up of unconventional weapons of war in
neighboring Arab countries, including by Saddam Hussein for use against
Israel.
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Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, is known for his
regular interviews with Mideast terror leaders and his popular segments on
America's top radio programs.

--
JUSTICE FOR JONATHAN POLLARD
Website: www.JonathanPollard.org