WASHINGTON
(AP) -- The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the
sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to
communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone
had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.
The
incident, described by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials,
might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in
the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had
happened to the previous station chief in Israel.
It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched.
In
a separate episode, according to another two former U.S. officials, a
CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had
been rearranged. In all the cases, the U.S. government believes
Israel's security services were responsible.
Such
meddling underscores what is widely known but rarely discussed outside
intelligence circles: Despite inarguable ties between the U.S. and its
closest ally in the Middle East and despite statements from U.S.
politicians trumpeting the friendship, U.S. national security officials
consider Israel to be, at times, a frustrating ally and a genuine
counterintelligence threat.-[Full Article]
