US intel leak on Israel's Iran attack plans stokes consternation
The leak of US assessments on Israel's preparations for an attack on Iran has embarrassed Washington and left officials scrambling for the source of the leak and spawned theories on how such sensitive information could have emerged.
"That is not supposed to happen, and it's unacceptable when it does," White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby said, adding that the source of the leak or whether it was the result of a hack had not yet been determined.
“The president remains deeply concerned about any leakage of classified information into the public domain,” Kirby said.
The highly classified information relates to intelligence gleaned from US satellites relating to what it describes as preparations for an Israeli air attack in Iran in retaliation for an Oct. 1 missile barrage on the Jewish state.
The documents first appeared online Friday on the Telegram messaging app and quickly spread among Telegram channels popular with Iranians known as the Middle East Spectator. The platform's account on X lists its location as the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency were the alleged authors of the intelligence, which was meant only for the "Five Eyes", an alliance of intelligence sharing countries comprising the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia.
Holden Tripplet, a former FBI counterintelligence official told Iran International on Sunday the leak could have been aimed at scaling back the scope of Israel's plans.
“The leak, if done without official sanction by the US government, may have been intended to dissuade an Israeli strike or at least limit the overall retaliatory response," said Tripplet, who spent 15 years in the FBI.
The leak earned criticism of the Biden-Harris administration from a usual quarter, Republicans in congress.
Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker posted to X on Tuesday cited the case of Ariane Tabatabai, a senior Pentagon official with alleged ties to Iran.
An Iran International Investigation found Tabatabai was part of an official Iranian influence network in Washington DC advocating for Tehran and its policy goals. There has been no evidence connecting Tabatabai to the release of classified documents.
"Last year, I called for suspending Ariane Tabatabai’s security clearance for her role in an Iranian info op. Amazingly, she’s still in her job," Wicker wrote.
"The latest apparent leak to an Iranian Telegram channel reflects the Biden-Harris administration's tolerance of insider threats."
"A lot of people have been worried that there are Iranian sympathizers in the Biden-Harris White House. It‘s very disturbing and the administration needs to come clean on this," former US national security advisor, John Bolton, said on Monday.
US Iran envoy Robert Malley was suspended last year after what media reports citing government sources described as mishandling classified information. He was placed on unpaid leave and had his security clearance suspended.
In February 2021, Malley selected Ariane Tabatabai, then a Middle East fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, for his State Department team to assist in negotiations with Iran. She served in that position for almost 15 months.