Report: Bush ends CIA’s role as Mideast broker
Source: Itim, Ha’aretz, Israel, 23 March 2001
WASHINGTON –
The Bush administration has pulled the plug on the CIA’s high-profile role as a broker between Israeli and Palestinian security
services, the Washington Post reported yesterday. The two sides must cooperate directly, a senior administration official was quoted as saying.
The decision comes despite requests from top Palestinian officials for a continuation of the agency’s role in exchanging intelligence and quelling
terrorism.
«There has been a change,» the official said. «Our experience is that the best security talks are those that occur between Israelis and Palestinians
directly.»
The agency also has developed links to Arafat’s security services since at least 1996, when George Tenet, then deputy CIA director, met his Palestinian
counterparts, officials said. The Clinton administration then stepped up covert aid to help the Palestinians develop a more professional security operation.
Tenet, meanwhile, assumed a remarkably public profile for a CIA director, traveling to the region at least 10 times, often to persuade the sides to
improve their coordination and to urge the Palestinians to move more forcefully against extremists
