Germany provided Passports to Mossad

[Moses]

Report: Germany provided passports to Mossad agents
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondents

The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has provided the Mossad espionage agency with German passports used for carrying out missions in the Middle East, the German newspaper Koelner Stadtanzeiger reported Saturday.

The paper quoted a former senior official in the German intelligence service as saying that Mossad agents used German passports for undercover operations in Middle Eastern countries, which he did not name.

A spokesman for the BND confirmed that his organization is cooperating with the Mossad, but refused to respond to the reported information that the organization supplied the Mossad with passports.


The Mossad and the German intelligence service have been cooperating since the 1950s, and according to previous reports published on the matter, the German intelligence service had supplied the Mossad with passports and other documents.

The report comes in the wake of two affairs in which Mossad agents had been caught using or trying to use foreign passports. The first was the 1996 attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Jordan, in which the agents used Canadian passports. In the second affair in 2004 Mossad agents tried to get hold of a local passport in New Zealand.

However, in the current report the German intelligence service provided the passports of its own will and as part of the cooperation between Israel and Germany, in contrast to the previous incidents in which the Mossad tried to get hold of the passports illegally and without the authorization of the countries involved.

[Moses]

German FM Cuts Mideast Trip Short over Debate on Iraq Intelligence
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BERLIN

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will cut short a trip to the Middle East this week to answer to reports that Berlin covertly shared sensitive intelligence with the United States during the Iraq war, a spokeswoman said Jan. 17.

The visit, originally scheduled for Jan. 18-21, included stops in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

Steinmeier will now leave for Cairo Jan. 18 and give a speech Jan. 19 at an international book fair, at which Germany is the guest country, before returning home.


The spokeswoman said he hoped to reschedule the other visits as soon as possible but that “he had a vested interest in taking part in the debate” Jan. 20 before the lower house of parliament on the intelligence affair.

Opposition parties called the 90-minute debate to discuss the previous government’s decision to leave two agents of the German intelligence services abroad (BND) in Baghdad despite Berlin’s official condemnation of the war.

The Greens, the Free Democrats and the Left Party were to decide later on Jan. 17 whether to open a formal parliamentary probe of the issue.

Steinmeier, who served as then-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s chief of staff and coordinated the secret services, is seen as a central figure in the case.

He has said the BND officers passed on information to prevent the bombing of civilian targets and save lives.

But German media reports said the agents helped the U.S. military select targets for bombing, sparking outrage in Germany because of bitter opposition here to the war.

[Moses]

From Monsters and Critics.com

Europe Features
Germany`s intelligence affair
By Stefan Nicola
Jan 18, 2006, 19:00 GMT

KEHL AM RHEIN, Germany (UPI) -- The next few weeks will decide whether German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier can keep his job amid mounting pressure to reveal his knowledge over the involvement of German intelligence in Iraq.

Last week`s media reports that two officers of Germany`s Federal Intelligence Service BND had aided directly in a U.S. bombing in Baghdad that killed 12 civilians, blew up some serious political dust. However, it still remains unsure whether those accusations are true.

In the middle of the affair is Steinmeier, who at the time of the U.S.-led Iraq War oversaw Germany`s intelligence services as the head of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder`s office.

The three German opposition parties on Tuesday joined forces and decided they would back the implementation of a parliamentary board of inquiry, a measure they argue is necessary to shed light into the affair with several recent revelations that Germany is more entangled in the messy war on terror than previously thought.

To launch such a committee, the 166 lawmakers Green Party, Free Democrats and Leftist Union will have to vote almost unanimously to get the necessary 154 votes.

The last few months revealed the BND had interrogated a Turkish-German inmate at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a Syrian-German in a secret prison in Damascus. On top of that comes the illegal abduction of German citizen Khaled el-Masri by the CIA, a case that overshadowed last month`s Berlin visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and the German intelligence affair is complete.

The latest revelation has enraged opposition politicians and population alike, as the Schroeder government had vehemently campaigned against the war in Iraq.

The involved politicians, including Steinmeier and former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, say they knew that agents remained in Iraq but did not know about any targeting aiding, as the government`s anti-war position was binding for the intelligence.

\'Some people now try to rewrite history,\' Steinmeier told Sunday`s Bild newspaper. \'My Party and I will not let that happen.\'

Steinmeier added that only data of non-targets such as hospitals and embassies were shared with U.S. intelligence to spare them from being hit.

\'There is no double-standard in that,\' Steinmeier said. \'That`s saving innocent peoples` lives.\'

Leading Social Democrats, including party head Matthias Platzeck, have since backed Steinmeier. Green Party deputy parliamentary chief Juergen Trittin said in a TV interview there was no reason to speak about Steinmeier`s resignation, an event that seems more and more unlikely, according to a political expert.

\'The affair is hyped in the media,\' Hanns Maul, political science professor at Trier University, on Tuesday told United Press International.

\'Fischer a few years ago was much more deeply entangled in his affair, and he didn`t have to resign.\'

Fischer at the time was faced with criticism over lax visa regulations, enabling tens of thousands of quasi-illegal immigrants to enter Germany.

But the opposition is nevertheless ready to shed more light into the affair. That could have the consequence that former government figures, including Schroeder and Fischer, will likely have to testify. The Green Party wants to interrogate even U.S. intelligence officers, but it remains very unlikely that an invited U.S. officer would testify. <!--page-->

Dieter Althaus, premier of Thuringia state and an opponent of Schroeder, said Germans had to be told whether the former chancellor let the BND help the US while publicly criticizing the war. The BND`s presence in wartime Iraq had been kept secret until last week.

A lengthy report in Monday`s Der Spiegel confirms such allegations. The news magazine claims that U.S. intelligence officers handed the BND accounts of the progress of the war in Iraq for its intelligence over Iraqi troop movements and the location of defense units.

The BND vows it has never given data for targeting and says its officers had only gathered intelligence but never took an active part in the conflict. Germany`s parliamentary intelligence oversight committee Friday had rejected the media reports of aid to the U.S. after interviewing intelligence chiefs.

Several former government officials have said the parliamentary inquiry board was inappropriate.

\'Our partners will ask themselves: Can we still share intelligence (with Germany) if we have to fear that it will be discussed publicly?\' SPD head Peter Struck, who at the time was Germany`s defense minister, said in a TV interview. \'The cooperation with foreign intelligence services, a cooperation we need, will suffer.\'

Copyright 2006 by United Press International

© Copyright 2003 - 2005 by monstersandcritics.com.