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USS Liberty
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| rupert |
The BBC recently had a documentary on the Israeli attack on the USS liberty. It can be found at:
http://www.informationclearinghouse...article5073.htm
It is extremely long and I had problems dropping out but worth the effort. It should especially be watched by all those americans here who think that Israel is their ally.
In short, Israel deliberately attacked an american warship and the US government has covered it up. Of course, everyone hear knows my contempt for the state of Israel and would dismiss anything I say, but the interview quotes Robert McNamara, a Cabinet minister at the time in the Johnson administration who stated that the Liberty was deliberately attacked by Israel. Deliberately and then they shot up the life rafts.
For those who dont have the time below is a summary taken from a different site:
Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized the Liberty as American immediately, so informed his headquarters, and was told to ignore the American flag and continue his attack. He refused to do so and returned to base, where he was arrested.
Later, a dual-citizen Israeli major told survivors that he was in an Israeli war room where he heard that pilot's radio report. The attacking pilots and everyone in the Israeli war room knew that they were attacking an American ship, the major said. He recanted the statement only after he received threatening phone calls from Israel.
The pilot's protests also were heard by radio monitors in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter has confirmed this. Porter told his story to syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak and offered to submit to further questioning by authorities. Unfortunately, no one in the U.S. government has any interest in hearing these first-person accounts of Israeli treachery.
Key members of the Lyndon Johnson administration have long agreed that this attack was no accident. Perhaps most outspoken is former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer. "I can never accept the claim that this was a mistaken attack, " he insists.
Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk is equally outspoken, calling the attack deliberate in press and radio interviews. Similarly strong language comes from top leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency (some of whose personnel were among the victims), National Security Council, and from presidential advisers such as Clark Clifford, Joseph Califano and Lucius Battle.
A top-secret analysis of Israel's excuse conducted by the Department of State found Israel's story to be untrue. Yet Israel and its defenders continue to stand by their claim that the attack was a "tragic accident" in which Israel mistook the most modern electronic surveillance vessel in the world for a rusted-out 40-year-old Egyptian horse transport.
Despite the evidence, no U.S. administration has ever found the courage to ever found the courage to defy the Israeli lobby by publicly demanding a proper accounting from Israel. |
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| Izzy |
the israeli attack on the USS liberty was a grievous error, largely attributable to the fact that it occurred in the midst of the confusion of a full scale war in 1967. Ten official US investigations and three official israeli inquiries have all conclusively established the attack was a tragic mistake
on the fourth day of the six-day war, the israeli high command recieved reports that israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. the US had announced that it had no Naval fources within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the UN a few days ealier; however the USS liberty, an american intellegence shop assigned to monitor the fighting arived in the area, 14 miles off the sinai coast, as a result of a series of US communication faluires, whereby messeages birectingthe ship not to approach within 100 miles were not recieved by the liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 34 members of the Liberty's crew, and wounding 171.
according to israeli cheif of staff yitzhak rabin's memoirs, there were standing orders to attack any unidentified vessel near the shore. The sea was calm and the US navy court of inquiry found that the liberty's flag was very likely dropped and not discernible. A CIA report on the incident also found that an over-zealous polot could mistake the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, the El Quseir. After the air raid, Israeli torpefo boats identified the Liberty as an Egyptian naval vessel. When the libery began shooting at the Israelis, they responded with the torpedo attack.
The Israelis initially were terrified that they had attacked a soviet ship and might provoke the soviets to join fighting. The israelis were relieved when they learned it was an american ship, though Rabin remained concerned the istake might jeopardize American support for Israel.
Once the israelis were sure of what had happened, they reported the incident to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and offered to provide a helicopter for the americans to fly out to the ship and any help they required to evacuate the injured and salvage the ship. The offer was accepter and a US naval attache was flown to the liberty.
Also, contrary to claims that an israeli pilot identified the ship s aamerican on radio taope, no one has ever produced the tape. In fact, the only tape in existence is the official israeli air force tape, which clearly established that no such identification of the ship was made by the israeli pilots prior to the attack.
None of Israel's accusers can explain why Israel would deliberately attack an american ship at the time when the US was israel's only friend and supporter in the world. confusion in a long line of communications, which occured in a tense atmosphere on both the american and israeli sides is a more probable explonation.
Accidents cause by "friendly fire" are common in wartime. In 1988 the US mistakenly downed an Iranian passnger plane killing 290 civilians. During the Gulf war 35 of the 148 americans who died in battle were killed by friendly fire. In fact the day before the liberty was attacked, Israeli pilots accidentally bomber one of their own armored columns south of jenin in the west bank.
Secretary of defense Robert McNamara told congress on july 27, 1967: It was the conclusion of the investigatory body, headed by an admiral of the Navy in whom we have great confidence, that the attack was not intentional.
Israel apologized for the tragedy and paid nearly 13$ million in humanitarian reporations to the US and to the familites of the victims in amounts established by the US state department. |
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| 'mju:zik |
| quote: | Originally posted by Izzy
None of Israel's accusers can explain why Israel would deliberately attack an american ship at the time when the US was israel's only friend and supporter in the world. confusion in a long line of communications, which occured in a tense atmosphere on both the american and israeli sides is a more probable explonation.
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yea
sounds like the pilot wanted some attention
why would they attack the US on purpose? those evil americans, they stopped the nazis and gave us f-16s...lets attack them!!! |
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| Spankster |
Its funny how the president who covered up this incident also used a false incident in the gulf of tonkin vietnam to justify carpet bombing and killing millions of vietmanese. The hypocrisy is pathetic. This is a perfect example of the power of the jewish lobby in US politics. LBJ was to chicken to publicly criticize israel with a election coming up.
The cover-up
At the height of the six-day war in 1967, Israel attacked a US spy ship, killing 34 men and injuring many more. The Israelis claimed it was an accident, the Americans backed them up. But, as James Bamford reveals in his new book, both governments concealed the horrific truth
Special report: Israel and the Middle East
Wednesday August 8, 2001
The Guardian
Early in the morning of Thursday June 8 1967 and the first rays of sun spilled softly over the Sinai's blond waves of sand. A little more than a dozen miles north, in the choppy eastern Mediterranean, the USS Liberty headed eastward. But the calmness was like quicksand - deceptive, inviting and friendly - until it was too late.
As the Liberty passed the desert town of El Arish, it was being closely watched. About 4,000ft above was an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft. At 6.05am, the observer on the plane reported back to Israeli naval headquarters: "What we could see were the letters written on that ship and we gave these letters to ground control," he said. The letters were "GTR-5" - the Liberty's identification. "GTR" stood for "General Technical Research" - a cover designation for the National Security Agency (NSA)'s fleet of spy ships.
The Liberty was in dangerous waters at a dangerous time. The six-day war, in which Israeli air and ground forces launched a massive attack on Egypt, Syria and Jordan, was raging. Fearing involvement in a Middle East war, the US joint chiefs of staff needed rapid intelligence on the ground situation in Egypt. Ships were considered the best option for the job. They could sail relatively close and pick up the most important signals. Also, unlike aircraft, they could remain on station for weeks at a time, eavesdropping, locating transmitters, and analysing the intelligence. And so the Liberty, which was large, fast and had been stationed relatively close on the Ivory Coast, had been ordered in.
Throughout the morning, the ship sailed on, with reconnaissance repeated at approximately 30-minute intervals. At one point, an Israeli air force Noratlas Nord 2501 circled the ship and headed back towards the Sinai. "It had a big Star of David on it and it was flying just a little bit above our mast," recalled crew member Larry Weaver. "I was actually able to wave to the co-pilot. He waved back and actually smiled at me - I could see him that well. There's no question about it. They had seen the ship's markings and the American flag. They could damn near see my rank. The underway flag was definitely flying, especially when you're that close to a war zone."
By 9.50am, the minaret at El Arish could be seen with the naked eye like a solitary mast in a sea of sand. Although no one on the ship knew it at the time, the Liberty had suddenly trespassed into a private horror. At that very moment, near the minaret, Israeli forces were engaged in a criminal slaughter.
Three days after Israel had launched the six- day war, Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai had become a nuisance. There was no place to house them, not enough Israelis to watch them, and few vehicles to transport them to prison camps. But there was another way to deal with them.
As the Liberty sat within eyeshot of El Arish, eavesdropping on surrounding communications, Israeli soldiers turned the town into a slaughterhouse, systematically butchering their prisoners. An eyewitness recounted how in the shadow of the El Arish mosque, they lined up about 60 unarmed Egyptian prisoners, hands tied behind their backs, and then opened fire with machine guns until the pale desert sand turned red.
This and other war crimes were just some of the secrets Israel had sought to conceal since the start of the conflict. An essential element in the Israeli battle plan seemed to have been to hide much of the war behind a carefully constructed curtain of lies: lies about the Egyptian threat, lies about who started the war, lies to the US president, lies to the UN Security Council, lies to the press, lies to the public. Thus, as the American naval historian Dr Richard K Smith noted, "any instrument which sought to penetrate this smoke screen so carefully thrown around the normal 'fog of war' would have to be frustrated".
Into this sea of deception and slaughter sailed the USS Liberty, an enormous spy factory loaded with the latest eavesdropping gear.
About noon, as the Liberty was again in sight of El Arish, and while the massacres were taking place, an army commander there reported that a ship was shelling them from the sea. But that was impossible. The only ship in the vicinity was the Liberty, and she was eavesdropping, not shooting. As any observer would have recognised, the ship was a tired old second world war vessel crawling with antennae, and unthreatening to anyone - unless it was their secrets, not their lives, they wanted to protect.
By then the Israeli navy and air force had conducted more than six hours of close surveillance of the Liberty off the Sinai and must have positively identified it as an American electronic spy ship. They knew she was the only military ship in the area. Nevertheless, the order was given to kill her and at 12.05pm, three motor torpedo boats from the port of Ashdod, about 50 miles away, departed. Israeli air force fighters, loaded with 50mm cannon ammunition, rockets and napalm, followed.
Without warning, the Israeli jets - swept-wing Dassault Mirage IIICs - struck. On board Liberty, Lieutenant Painter observed that the aircraft had "absolutely no markings", their identity unclear. He then attempted to reach the men manning the gun mounts, but it was too late. "I was trying to contact these two kids," he recalled, "and I saw them both; well, I didn't exactly see them as such. They were blown apart, but I saw the whole area go up in smoke and scattered metal. At about the same time, the aircraft strafed the bridge area. The quarter-master, Petty Officer Third Class Pollard, was standing right next to me, and he was hit."
The Mirages raked the ship from bow to stern with armour-piercing lead. A bomb exploded near the whaleboat aft of the bridge, and those in the pilothouse and the bridge were thrown from their feet. Commander William L McGonagle grabbed for the engine order annunciator and rang up all ahead flank.
In the communications spaces, radiomen James Halman and Joseph Ward had patched together enough equipment and broken antennae to get a distress call off to the Sixth Fleet, despite intense jamming by the Israelis. "Any station, this is Rockstar," Halman shouted, using the Liberty's voice call sign. "We are under attack by unidentified jet aircraft and require immediate assistance."
"Great, wonderful, she's burning, she's burning," said an Israeli pilot.
At 2.09pm, the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, operating near Crete, acknowledged Liberty's cry for help. "I am standing by for further traffic," it signalled.
After taking out the gun mounts, the Israeli fighter pilots turned their attention to the antennae so the ship could not call for help or pick up any more revealing interceptions. Then the planes attacked the bridge, killing instantly the ship's executive officer. With the Liberty now deaf, blind, and silenced, unable to call for help or move, the Israeli pilots proceeded to kill her. Designed to punch holes in the toughest tanks, their shells tore through the Liberty's steel plating like hot nails through butter, exploding into jagged bits of shrapnel and butchering men deep in their living quarters.
As the slaughter continued, neither the Israelis nor the Liberty crew had any idea that witnesses were present high above. Until now, that is. According to information, interviews and documents obtained, for nearly 35 years the NSA has hidden the fact that one of its planes - a Navy EC-121 ferret - was overhead at the time of the incident, eavesdropping on what was going on below. The interceptions from that plane, which answer some of the key questions about the attack, are among the NSA's deepest secrets.
The ferret had taken off from Athens for its regular patrol of the eastern Mediterranean, and at about the time that the air attack was getting underway, Navy Chief Petty Officer Marvin Nowicki heard one of the other Hebrew linguists on the plane excitedly trying to get his attention on the secure intercom. "Hey, chief," he shouted, "I've got really odd activity on UHF. They mentioned an American flag. I don't know what's going on." Nowicki asked the linguist for the frequency and "rolled up to it". "Sure as the devil," said Nowicki, "Israeli aircraft were completing an attack on some object. I alerted the evaluator, giving him sparse details, adding that we had no idea what was taking place."
Deep down in Liberty, Terry McFarland, head encased in earphones, was vaguely aware of flickers of light coming through the bulkhead. He had no idea that they were armour-piercing tracer bullets slicing through the ship's skin. Larry Weaver had run to his general quarters station but it was located on an old helicopter pad that left him exposed and vulnerable. He grabbed a dazed shipmate and pushed him into a safe corner. "I said, 'Fred, stay here, you've just got to because he's coming up the centre'," Weaver recalled. "I got in the foetal position," he said, "and before I closed my eyes I looked up and I saw the American flag and that was the last thing I saw before I was hit. I closed my eyes, just waiting for hell's horror to hit me. And I was hit by rocket and cannon fire that blew two and a half feet of my colon out and I received over 100 shrapnel wounds. It blew me up in the air about four and a half, five feet. And just blood everywhere."
Stan White raced through the sick bay for the enclosed NSA spaces. "Torn and mutilated bodies were everywhere," he said. "Horrible sight!"
As soon as the Mirages pulled away, they were replaced by Super Mystere fighters which raked the ship. A later analysis would show 821 separate hits on the hull and superstructure. Now, in addition to rocket, cannon, and machine-gun fire, the Mysteres attacked with 1,000lb bombs and napalm. Deafening explosions tore through the ship and the bridge disappeared in an orange-and-black ball. Lying wounded by shrapnel, his blood draining into his shoe, was Commander McGonagle. Seconds later the fighters were back. Flesh fused with iron as more strafing was followed by more rockets, followed by napalm.
As the last fighter departed, having emptied out its onboard armoury, turning the Liberty's hull into a flaming mass of grey Swiss cheese, sailors lifted mutilated shipmates on to makeshift stretchers of pipe frame and chicken wire. Damage control crews pushed through passageways of suffocating smoke and blistering heat, and the chief petty officer's lounge was converted into a macabre sea of blood-soaked mattresses and shattered bodies.
After landing back at Athens airport, Nowicki and the intercept crew were brought directly to the processing centre. "By the time we arrived at the USA-512J compound," he said, "collateral reports were coming in to the station about the attack on the USS Liberty. The NSA civilians took our tapes and began transcribing. It was pretty clear that Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats attacked a ship in the east Med. Although the attackers never gave a name or a hull number, the ship was identified as flying an American flag. We logically concluded that the ship was the USS Liberty."
At 2.50pm (Liberty time), 50 minutes after the first shells tore into the ship and as the attack was still going on, the aircraft carrier USS America, cruising near Crete, was ordered to launch four armed A-4 Skyhawks. At the same time, the carrier USS Saratoga was also told to send four armed A-1 attack planes to defend the ship. "Sending aircraft to cover you," the Sixth Fleet told the Liberty at 3:05pm (9.05am in Washington). "Surface units on the way."
At that moment in Washington, President Johnson was at his desk, on the phone, alternately shouting at congressional leaders and coaxing them to support his position on several pieces of pending legislation. But four minutes later he was interrupted by Walt Rostow, national security adviser, on the other line. "The Liberty has been torpedoed in the Mediterranean," Rostow told Johnson excitedly.
The NSA's worst fears had come true. "After considerations of personnel safety," said deputy director Tordella, "one of my immediate concerns, considering the depth of the water and the distance of the ship off shore, had to do with the classified materials on board." Tordella got on the phone to the Joint Reconnaissance Centre (JCS) and spoke to the deputy director, a Navy captain named Vineyard. "I expressed my concern that the written material be burned if at all possible, and that the electronic equipment be salvaged if that were possible," he said.
But Tordella was not prepared for what he heard. According to NSA documents - classified top secret- he was told that some senior officials in Washington wanted above all to protect Israel from embarrassment. "Captain Vineyard had mentioned during this conversation," wrote Tordella, "that consideration was then being given by some unnamed Washington authorities to sink[ing] the Liberty in order that newspaper men would be unable to photograph her and thus inflame public opinion against the Israelis. I made an impolite comment about the idea." Almost immediately, Tordella wrote a memorandum for the record, describing the conversation, and then locked it away.
A cover story for the Liberty was then quickly devised. "She was a communications research ship that was diverted from her research assignment," it said, "to provide improved communication-relay links with the several US embassies around the entire Mediterranean during the current troubles."
On the Liberty, black smoke was still escaping through more than 800 holes in the hull, and the effort to hush up the incident had already begun. Within hours of the attack, which left 34 men dead and two-thirds of the rest of the crew wounded, Israel asked President Johnson to quietly bury the incident. "Embassy Tel Aviv," said a highly secret, very limited distribution message to the state department, "urged de-emphasis on publicity since proximity of vessel to scene of conflict was fuel for Arab suspicions that the US was aiding Israel." Shortly thereafter, a total news ban was ordered by the Pentagon. No one in the field was allowed to say anything about the attack. All information was to come only from a few senior Washington officials.
Later that morning, Johnson took the unusual step of ordering the JCS to recall its fighters while the Liberty still lay smouldering, sinking, fearful of another attack and with its decks covered with the dead, dying and wounded. On board the flagship of the Sixth Fleet, Rear Admiral Lawrence R Geis, who commanded the carrier force in the Mediterranean, was angry and puzzled at the recall and protested to the secretary of defence, Robert S McNamara.
Geis was shocked by what he heard next. "President Lyndon Johnson came on with a comment that he didn't care if the ship sunk, he would not embarrass his allies." Geis told Lieutenant Commander David Lewis, head of the NSA group on the Liberty, about the comment but asked him to keep it secret until after Geis died. It was a promise that Lewis kept.
In the days following the attack, the Israeli government gave the US government a classified report that attempted to justify the claim that the attack was a mistake. On the basis of that same report, an Israeli court of inquiry completely exonerated the government and all those involved. No one was ever court-martialled, reduced in rank or even reprimanded. On the contrary, Israel chose instead to honour motor torpedo boat 203, which fired the deadly torpedo at the Liberty. The ship's wheel and bell were placed on prominent display at the naval museum, among the maritime artefacts of which the Israeli navy was most proud.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel had attacked the ship and killed the American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson administration and Congress covered up the entire incident. Johnson was planning to run for president the following year and needed the support of pro-Israel voters.
A mistake or mass murder? It was a question Congress never bothered to address in public hearings at the time. Among those who have long called for an in-depth congressional investigation is Admiral Thomas Moorer, who went on to become chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. "Congress to this day," he said, "has failed to hold formal hearings for the record on the Liberty affair. This is unprecedented and a national disgrace." Perhaps it is not too late.
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| Izzy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spankster
Its funny how the president who covered up this incident also used a false incident in the gulf of tonkin vietnam to justify carpet bombing and killing millions of vietmanese. The hypocrisy is pathetic. This is a perfect example of the power of the jewish lobby in US politics. LBJ was to chicken to publicly criticize israel with a election coming up.
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spankster please read this, i read yours...
it's better read through this link
Key aspects of author James Bamford's recent account of the 1967 Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty are being disavowed by some of his own sources.
The Liberty, an American spy ship, was sailing in the Mediterranean Sea off the Sinai coast when it was attacked on June 8, 1967 by Israeli air and naval forces towards the end of the 1967 war. There were 34 Americans killed and 171 wounded. The Israeli government claimed the attack was an "error"; some U.S. officials, and surviving Liberty crew members, have contended that the attack must have been deliberate. But why?
In his new bestseller "Body of Secrets," Bamford proposes a motive for the attack: Israel, he says, was in the process of murdering several hundred Egyptian prisoners of war at nearby El Arish and wanted to prevent the Liberty from preserving recorded evidence of the massacre.
But there appears to be no verifiable evidence that such a massacre ever took place, and Bamford's description of events at El Arish doesn't hold up. Thus, he attributes to Israeli journalist Gabi Bron a claim that 150 prisoners were executed there. But Bron himself denies that and says "there were no mass murders."
Meanwhile, Bamford infers that the Israelis must have known that they were attacking an American ship because, as he discovered, an American surveillance aircraft was flying overhead at the time and it recorded Israeli pilots' references to a U.S. flag.
But Bamford's source, the American airman and linguist who recorded those communications, reached an "opposite" conclusion. Marvin E. Nowicki wrote in a letter to the Wall Street Journal (16 May 2001) that the Israeli military forces "prosecuted the Liberty until their operators had an opportunity to get close-in and see the flag, hence the references to the flag." The attack, he believes, "was a gross error."
These and other disputed points in Bamford's account are presented in a fierce critique by Michael Oren in the latest issue of The New Republic ("Unfriendly Fire," 23 July). That article is not available online, but an earlier article by Oren entitled "The U.S.S. Liberty: Case Closed" appeared in the Israeli neoconservative journal Azure (Spring 2000).
James Bamford has done more than any other individual to shed light on the National Security Agency and to promote public accountability of this intensely secretive organization, dating back to his landmark 1982 book "The Puzzle Palace." The list of his reportorial coups to the present day is long and impressive.
His new chapter on the Liberty itself contains significant new information and reporting. But his tendentious interpretation of the event is a salutary reminder that even the best reporters can get it wrong, and that readers ultimately have to be their own critics.
In response to a number of reviews pointing out defects in his argument that the Israeli attack was deliberate, Mr. Bamford has lately taken a somewhat defensive posture. "It's not my job to provide definitive proof," he said at a recent book-signing. "I didn't have the time or the money to look into all of the details."
Rather, he said, he hoped to prompt a congressional investigation into the matter and to promote declassification of documents such as the transcript of the recordings made by the American surveillance aircraft.
Documentation on the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty will be printed in "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, volume XIX, Six-Day War" which is tentatively scheduled for publication next year.
The National Security Agency and the Defense Department are now conducting a declassification review of documents for publication in that volume. The NSA exceeded the nominal deadline for declassification in May, but told the State Department that its review should be completed by August of this year. No description of the documents under review has been disclosed.
Posted on Occupational Hazard with permission of the author.
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
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7/26/01 - Bamford Replies to Secrecy News
James Bamford, author of the bestselling book "Body of Secrets," angrily rebuked Secrecy News for a July 17 story that described disputed points in his account of the 1967 Israeli attack on the American surveillance ship U.S.S. Liberty. In a written response, Mr. Bamford also provided an extended rebuttal to a recent article about the Liberty in The New Republic.
The Secrecy News item was "a model of poor reporting," Mr. Bamford wrote. Criticizing Mr. Bamford's work without affording him the opportunity to reply "violates the most basic rule of journalism."
Secrecy News apologizes for not having contacted Mr. Bamford for comment.
In response to the assertion that there is no verifiable evidence that mass murders of Egyptian prisoners of war took place in 1967 which might have provided a motive for an Israeli attack on the Liberty, Mr. Bamford cited abundant reporting in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications indicating that Israeli soldiers killed hundreds of Egyptians.
Mr. Bamford agreed that linguist Marvin E. Nowicki, who had recorded Israeli pilot communications during the attack, believes the attack was an "error." Indeed, Mr. Bamford said, he mentioned this fact explicitly in "Body of Secrets." But while Mr. Nowicki is entitled to his opinion, he wrote, others who had equal or greater access to intelligence data on the attack -- including the other Hebrew linguist aboard the U.S. surveillance plane overhead -- concluded that it was deliberate.
Mr. Bamford noted that while he is an independent writer with "no ties to either Israel or any organization involved with the U.S.S. Liberty," the same cannot be said of Michael Oren, the author of the New Republic article upon which Secrecy News relied, who is an Israeli reserve officer and associated with a right wing Israeli think tank. This association, in Mr. Bamford's view, tends to nullify any claim to objectivity that Mr. Oren may have.
"The principal mission of the center, where Mr. Oren is a senior fellow, is the cause of extreme Jewish nationalism -- Israel for the Jews -- i.e. apartheid," according to Mr. Bamford. As for The New Republic, that magazine in his estimation has "long [been] the U.S. propaganda arm of the Israeli far right."
"As an investigative journalist for nearly 25 years, I am never bothered by attacks like those from [Secrecy News] -- it comes with the territory," Mr. Bamford wrote. "What really disturbs me is the speed with which certain people are willing to run to Israel's defense while ignoring the heroic survivors of the USS Liberty -- and the relatives of those killed -- who have been pressing for a true, comprehensive investigation into the attack for more than 34 years."
The full text of Mr. Bamford's response is posted here.
A 1997 dissertation on the Liberty incident written by A. Jay Cristol which reportedly concludes that the Israeli attack on the U.S. ship was unwitting is slated for publication as a book in March 2002.
A television program called "Cover Up: Attack on the U.S.S. Liberty," will be broadcast on The History Channel on August 9. "We examine crewmembers' contentions that the attack was intentional and that both governments covered up the true details," according to advance program notes.
A State Department spokesman said that the forthcoming volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States that provides official documentation concerning the Liberty "does not include any intercepts or transcripts." Bamford, Nowicki and others have called for the declassification and release of the transcribed tapes of Israeli pilots' communications during the 1967 attack on the Liberty. |
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| Yoepus |
a link from izzy's post revealed perhaps the best article yet:
http://www.shalem.org.il/azure/9-Oren.htm
I say it is the best as it appears the most scholarly, with direct citation of sources for it assumptions and statements. |
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| rupert |
There is just something about the Liberty incident which doesnt add up, either from a pro or anti Israeli perspective.
1) why would Israel repeatedly attack the ship of an ally, if it was a mistake it would have been called off after the first attack.
2) why would US secretary of defence Robert MacNamara say that Israel deliberately attacked the Liberty. Those were his words not mine
3) the prisoners of war issue is a red herring. It doesnt explain anything. Even if the Israelis were shooting prisoners, why would they want to hide it from the Americans since the Americans could hardly have cared about a bunch of Egyptians. The USA knew in advance that Israel was planning to attack the arabs. The documentary specifically points out that the reconnaisance was provided by the USA on Israels behalf so the USA would have known about any prisoner killings had they occurred.
4) why were the Israeli planes without markings.
5) In the documentary a communications officer stated that the Israelis jammed the communications of the Liberty and then tried to shoot up the signal system so the Liberty couldnt get a mayday out to the main fleet. He stated that in order to jam the signal the Israelis must have known it was an american ship.
5) why did the USA sweep this incident under the carpet. They had nothing to gain from covering it up. Why breach protocol and not have the President give the captain of the Liberty the Congressional Medal of Honour. The documentary interviewed several of its crew who were baffled by the investigation process which breached standard operating procedure.
6) I strongly suspect that Robert Mcnamara wasnt telling all he knew, after all these years what would he have to hide. Why be evasive, his boss is long dead?
7) Why did the USA almost immediately believe it was Egypt and the aircraft carriers in the Mediterannean had launched planes to attack Egypt. Not my words, again the documentary specifically states that the planes had been launched and were only recalled by Executive order.
8) Why has nothing been heard about the Soviet Union warships that would have been in the vicinity which must surely have monitored the entire incident.
9) Did the Israelis think it was a Soviet Ship that they hit by accident, which is why they so thoroughly tried to finish off the Liberty, shooting up the liferafts? I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Israelis at first feared it was a Soviet ship they attacked.
10) why put the Libery in a situation where it could be attacked?
The book on the USS Liberty is far from closed. |
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| occrider |
I'm not sure if this has been posted, but they recentely declassified and released communications from the incident:
USS Liberty attack tapes released
From David Ensor
CNN Washington Bureau
Thursday, July 10, 2003 Posted: 3:35 AM EDT (0735 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Tapes released by the National Security Agency shed new light on the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 Americans and is one of the most controversial mysteries in U.S. Navy history.
The attack, which took place in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War, also left 171 Americans injured.
The Israelis have always said the attack on the Liberty, which was monitoring communications in the war, was a tragic accident.
But some survivors and senior U.S. officials at the time have said they believe the attack was a deliberate effort to stop American surveillance of Israeli activities during the conflict.
The NSA on Tuesday released audiotapes of Israeli pilots and ground control speaking in Hebrew, along with English transcripts.
The recordings were made by a nearby American surveillance aircraft in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
"For your info, it is apparently an Arab ship," says ground control.
"Roger," says the pilot.
"It is an Egyptian supply ship," says ground control.
"Roger," comes the response.
The NSA released the tapes and transcripts under the Freedom of Information Act in response to a request from Miami Judge Jay Cristol.
An author of a book on the attack, Cristol said the tapes show it was a tragic accident in a time of war -- that the Israelis mistook the ship for an Egyptian one.
"I don't think there's any question that anyone who reads these tapes would be absolutely convinced there was the fog of war out there," Cristol said.
Later on the tape, the Israelis sound confused and concerned. Ground control orders the helicopter pilots to look for survivors and to check their nationality.
"If they speak Arabic -- Egyptians -- you're taking them to Al-Arish. If they speak English -- non-Egyptians -- you're taking them to Lod. Is that clear?" says ground control.
"Roger," says the pilot.
James Bamford, the author of a history of the NSA, believes the tapes suggest the Israelis may have deliberately attacked the U.S. spy ship, perhaps fearing -- for some reason not known -- that it was spying on them.
"Here the transcripts are saying, 'Well, you know, there may be people speaking English on this ship,'" Bamford said. "Why would you say that if it's an Egyptian ship, carrying horses?"
On the tape, after the rescue helicopter pilot tells ground control he sees an American flag on the ship, he receives an order in return.
"They request that you make another pass and check once again whether it is really an American flag," ground control says.
The order suggests the Israelis were surprised at word of a U.S. flag, but it also runs counter to what Israeli fighter pilots and torpedo boat crews have always insisted: That they could not see an American flag.
"Clearly the flag was there," Bamford said, "because the intercepts show that the helicopter pilots saw it immediately, before they ever even got up to the ship."
The ship's flag now hangs in the National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade, Maryland, adjacent to NSA headquarters.
"I think this is probably the most important link in the evidence that ought to bring closure to this matter," Cristol said.
Surviving members of the Liberty crew argue that -- far from putting the matter to rest -- the tapes only underline the continuing need for a full, public U.S. investigation.
"A simple investigation -- that's all they have to do," said Joe Meadors, a Liberty survivor. "Find out what happened. If anybody did anything wrong, punish them."
In a letter to Cristol, the NSA said that contrary to rumors there was no U.S. submarine in the area watching, and the Liberty itself made no relevant recordings.
Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev said the tapes are "further evidence that the Liberty incident was a terrible and tragic case of mistaken identity." |
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| Yoepus |
yes initally actually I always tended to lean to the side stating it was an intentional attack on the liberty. I always thought it simply a case of "intelligence warfare"; since the US said it had no ship in the area, Israel made sure it had no ship in the area.
But upon further reading, both sides of the story those claiming to have accused it of being an Israeli attack seem very biased, and with weak evidence and rational. The side going against the attack seems well founded, supported by good logic, evidence, and the support of the many investigations conducted into the topic.
I think the whole problem with the liberty, the whole uproar about this is the fact that the US did a cover-up, had it attempted not to make a cover-up this would have seemed no worse then when the Iraqis sank a US ship, or when the US downed an Iranian commerical aircraft. The fact that there was a cover-up brings people to question, "why was there a cover-up?" and their answer is always going to be then, "because there was a conspiracy to cover some horrible truth". I don't think there was a conspiracy or a horrible truth, the US and Israel both wanted to keep this on the down-low. It is extremly embarrasing for the US to admit it was spying on Israel, and extremly embarrasing for Israel to admit it attacked it's best friend. This amid the tight tensions of the conflict underway I think are the better explination, not some conspiracy or intentional targeting.
Another logical argument I might add, is in reading these reports there seems a very pivital that US aircraft reported reading Israeli aircraft intercepts regarding the US liberty. This just adds a further point; the liberty was spying on Israel yes, but had Isral intended to stop US spying Israel would have had to go after the other US spy resources, the US reconisance planes would have been one of these.
I think the US coverup was done to preserve the integrity of its general spy missions. These GTRS had been deployed everywhere, had this been made public it would have blown the cover off the NSA and commited public pressure against the NSA (sending US personnel into a warzone) during the mid of cold-war when intelligence was highly needed, and highly important it be kept quiet. Both its success and failures.
The repeated attakcs could be best explained I think do to fog of war, and once you are engaged in an enemy you are very unlikely to disengage, else you admit error, its a natrual mind-block. Eventually however, when a new larger US flag was hoisted the attackers had to concede; they had done a VERY big mistake.
Just my thoughts on the aspect. I do believe more info should be declassified, and perhaps a new investigation to go with it (because I know otherwise people will simply use this declassified info to re-enforce their points whatever they are regardless if it actually does or does not; they will simply add those points that do to their argument and the points that don't they will ignore). I do believe however previous investigations were conducted in good merit and the case should really have been closed, espeically if these investigations have had access to these classified documents. I haven't researched these investigations, but I think they would have the best answers in them... are they classified as well? does anyone know? |
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| rizen |
they did it on purpose...
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
But some survivors and senior U.S. officials at the time have said they believe the attack was a deliberate effort to stop American surveillance of Israeli activities during the conflict. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by rizen
they did it on purpose... |
However, those beliefs are contradicted by the very communications going on at the time. |
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