By R. Cort Kirkwood (The New American)
Buried in the U.S. Senate’s 2027 Intelligence Authorization Act is a little-noticed section that, like Section 224 of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, will further entangle the United States with Israel.
Section 622 of the intelligence act orders the president to “expand and enhance intelligence sharing,” with Israel, a dangerous codicil given the Pentagon’s recent warning that Israel’s espionage effort against the United States was “critical.”
Sponsoring the imprudent measure was Israel-First GOP Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chief of the U.S. Senate Selection Committee on Intelligence. He is also the top recipient, among his state’s legislators, of loot from the Israel Lobby.
Section 622 opens with the claim that the intelligence-sharing mandate is necessary to protect American interests in the Middle East. It will “enhance intelligence collaboration through robust intelligence sharing and analytic partnership with Israel to counter terrorism, proliferation networks, cyber threats, state and nonstate aggressors, terror financing, sanctions evasion, and other transnational security challenges that threaten both Israel and the United States.”
The measure is also supposed to help “help Israel maintain its qualitative military edge” over its putative enemies.
Israel is a “critical United States security partner,” and sharing intelligence with the client state “has saved United States personnel and property in the region and should remain a central pillar of the bilateral security relationship,” the measure continues.
“The evolving threat environment in the Middle East — including missile proliferation, unmanned systems, cyber operations, terror financing, and proxy warfare — requires sustained and adaptive cooperation between the United States and Israel,” the measure avers.
Thus, the time has come to open the vaults of U.S. intelligence and give Israel carte blanche to collect anything it wants.
Yet the measure isn’t just what one might call advice. It doesn’t merely suggest that U.S. intelligence agencies share secrets with Israel.
It mandates it. If President Trump signs the bill, he must order U.S. intelligence officials to pass secrets to Israel, and if he doesn’t, the Israeli government will likely order the Israel Lobby to have a talk with Cotton and other Israel-Firsters such as GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Indeed, the measure sounds like the American intelligence combine will merge with Israel’s, not merely “share information.”
“The President, acting through the Director of National Intelligence and, as necessary, the Secretary of Defense, shall, subject to applicable law and the protection of intelligence sources and methods, expand and enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel,” the measure says. (Emphasis added.)
That includes “sharing of information relating to cybersecurity threats, terrorism, sanctions evasion, plans and intentions of state and nonstate actors, adversarial technology proliferation, missile threats, unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, air and space domain awareness, and other aerial threats relevant to the defense of Israel, United States forces and interests in the region, and regional security partners.”
The bill even prescribes when the president can withhold information from Israel. Sharing secrets “shall not be suspended, reduced, or otherwise materially limited except on the basis of a specific and identifiable national security concern determined by the President, such as the protection of intelligence sources and methods, counterintelligence risk, or another significant security consideration.” (Emphasis added.)
And if the president decides to alter sharing intelligence in any way, he must notify the House and Senate intelligence committees within 15 days. And he must explain his decision in detail.
Intelligence sharing with Israel might well be a major concern for America First intelligence officials, notably those in the Pentagon, as NBC News revealed just days ago.
The department’s Defense Intelligence Agency “in recent weeks issued the new counterintelligence threat assessment amid rising tensions between Israel and the U.S. over the way forward in the war with Iran,” the officials said.
DIA “posted an internal message, viewed by one of the current officials, that raised the level for Israel to ‘critical,’” the network reported of the agency’s concerns…
Read the rest here: https://thenewamerican.com/us/politics/foreign-policy/senate-bill-would-force-potus-to-share-intel-with-israel-in-virtual-merger-of-agencies/
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