Neocons looking to expand Israel-Hezbollah war

Posted by David DeGraw at 9:52 AM on August 4, 2006.

Sidney Blumenthal's latest article claims that the NSA is working with Israel to "monitor whether Syria and Iran are supplying new armaments to Hezbollah." He describes his source as "a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation."

"The National Security Agency is providing signal intelligence to Israel to monitor whether Syria and Iran are supplying new armaments to Hezbollah as it fires hundreds of missiles into northern Israel, according to a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation. President Bush has approved the secret program."

Blumenthal then goes on to say that Dick Cheney and Elliot Abrams are hoping to use the NSA intelligence to create a "pretext" for expanding the conflict to a "four-front war" involving Syria and Iran.

Inside the administration, neoconservatives on Vice President Dick Cheney's national security staff and Elliott Abrams, the neoconservative senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council, are prime movers behind sharing NSA intelligence with Israel, and they have discussed Syrian and Iranian supply activities as a potential pretext for Israeli bombing of both countries, the source privy to conversations about the program says. (Intelligence, including that gathered by the NSA, has been provided to Israel in the past for various purposes.) The neoconservatives are described as enthusiastic about the possibility of using NSA intelligence as a lever to widen the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Hamas into a four-front war.

In this video clip, DemocracyNow! discusses Blumenthal's article.

David DeGraw is AlterNet's video blogger.