Inside Intel / Israel's garden of secrets

Dr. David Robarge has a most enviable position: He sits on most of the secrets of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. True, these are secrets from the past, but any intelligence researcher or historian would like to be there in his stead.

He used to work in the CIA's research division and specialized in the study of political leadership in the Middle East. In this capacity, he visited Israel and met with colleagues in the Mossad and the Israel Defense Forces' intelligence branch, and took part in routine exchanges of information between the two countries.

For the past few years Robarge has been the chief historian of the organization.

Five employees with backgrounds in history and in the CIA, including in undercover operations, work under him. Their task is to write the CIA's history and to appear at various conferences.

That was also why he visited Israel this week - to attend the annual conference of the International Intelligence History Association organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

Robarge told the conference participants that in addition to preserving the history of the CIA, the books and studies he and his colleagues write are used as material for study and training by members of the CIA of all levels, from new recruits to the most senior officials.

There is another unit that operates alongside his department, he said, and its task is to review the material and decide whether it can be declassified.

The publication is in accordance with the American Freedom of Information Act and the law about public archives which declassifies secret material after 30 years.

Not all the papers are declassified, only ones that can't harm national security is redacted - about their modus operandi, intelligence gathering capabilities and matters relating to personal privacy - but the guiding principle for American democracy is that government organizations have to be transparent provide the people with accountability.

They are aware of the fact that they operate on behalf of the people and for the people, and that the public has a right to know.

In sharp contrast, it seems that the principle that guides the government and the intelligence agencies here is the exact opposite: They think the public has no right to know what they are doing.

The truth is that it seems the public in Israel is not really interested in knowing. For years, the espionage organizations and secret services in Israel - the Mossad, the Shin Bet security service, Nativ, which deals with immigration from Russia and the former Soviet Union, the IDF in general and Military Intelligence in particular, and the Atomic Energy Commission - violated the law.

Instead of entrusting their documents and research studies to the state archives, as the law stipulates, they set up their own private archives. For years, newspaper articles, including from this writer, spoke up about the violation, but they were received with apathy by the elected representatives and the organizations themselves. Many times the material was used in a discriminatory manner.

While the average man was not allowed a peek, the good old boys with the right security clearance were permitted to peruse the documents and some of them published studies with this material.

A few years ago, Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz petitioned the High Court of Justice and as a result the Shin Bet and the Mossad as well as the Atomic Energy Commission recently were forced to announce that they would henceforth be subordinate to the state archives.

It is true that in the past few years there has been a certain change in their attitude. The IDF archive was opened to the public and classified material, including that of the intelligence branch, was made public to all. The Shin Bet has begun putting documents from the early years on its Web site.

But this is still too little and it would be fitting for the secret bodies to learn from their colleagues not only in the United States but also in Britain and Germany, where documents from the past are revealed and made accessible to the public.

More money, more perks

And now for more about how money gets wasted in the Defense Ministry. It turns out that retired major generals who begin a second career with senior positions in the Defense Ministry are entitled to a special privilege - they can fly business class. There are three such officials: the head of the defense mission in Paris, Yossi Ben Hanan; the head of the foreign security assistance division, Udi Shani; and the head of the political-military affairs division in the ministry, Amos Gilad.

This privilege is yet another on the list revealed in this column and others, as well as in the State Comptroller's report, of ways in which money gets wasted. Benefits are handed out and there is a lack of sensitivity on the part of ministry officials who have among the highest salaries in the country, twice as much as the average wage.

This week the ministry director general, Pinchas Buchris, published a communique stating that the ministry plans to cut manpower by up to 30 percent at the overstaffed defense ministry mission in New York.

That was clear media spin aimed at diverting attention from the ostentatious and scandalous conduct of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, of Buchris, and other senior officials who visited the Paris Air Show a few months ago.

The press release stated that the cuts would be made over three years and until then the emissaries in New York would be allowed to complete their mission. Buchris will not be around then because he plans to retire shortly.

What the press release did not mention was that the strong workers' committee in the ministry will obviously not simply allow the employees to be dismissed, certainly not without getting suitable recompense.

If indeed the director general wants to make cuts and introduce efficiency measures, he would have canceled Victor Bar Gil's mission to Thailand; he would have prevented Ben-Hanan from going to Paris and closed the mission there; he would not have sent Eli Pinko to head the mission in Germany and would have refused to allow the mission's accountant in New York to live in an apartment for families in Manhattan while his wife and daughter are still in Israel.

All these events were reported here in the past few months but the minister, the director general and the senior officials preferred not to comment on them or to take any action.

Their approach was, and is, that the media watchdogs can bark, but the caravan will continue on its way.