Gideon's Spies

In their offices the analysts of Mossad, like those in other intelligence services, tried to predict how this would play out in the closing quarter of 2006. Much would depend on what happened in Iraq. The signs had never been good since the Bush administration, supported by Tony Blair, had made the monumental mistake of not paying close attention to the history books. Baghdad had been the spiritual seat of the original Caliphate. To attack it was an offense in the eyes of Osama bin Laden only rivaled by an assault on Mecca. In his speeches he had often spoken of “the joy of meeting the Infidel in the Land Between the Rivers”—the Euphrates and the Tigris which bisect Iraq. It is now his frontline, a place where his jihadists roam, showing the occupiers it is no longer the “slam dunk” (Tenet) or a “cakewalk” (Rumsfeld). If the original reason for the invasion—to remove the tyranny of Saddam Hussein—was in many ways an honorable one, it lacked a plan for what would follow. Now as the United States and a reluctant coalition of NATO troops struggled to pacify the Taliban in Afghanistan, the bodies in the streets of Baghdad—sixty-five found murdered on one day in September—continued to accrue.

Yet in his weekly morning conference Meir Dagan had warned his heads of department that Iran was now a priority for intelligence gathering in preparation for an aerial assault on its nuclear facilities.

In October 2007, Meir Dagan told his staff he had agreed to remain in office until “the Iran problem” was resolved. A year later, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Israel and Dagan’s political boss, announced he would retire to give more time to rebutting the corruption scandal engulfing him. Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, declared she would run for office as leader of the Kadima party. The hard-talking former Mossad agent, who had chased terrorists in Europe at the age of twenty-six, had given up the job after her future husband said he did not want his future wife spending nights in European hotels surrounded by fit, young Mossad agents. When in October 2008 Israel’s president said there would be a general election, Livni, now a vivacious fifty-year-old, made it clear she could count on the support of Meir Dagan in her bid to become the first woman prime minister since Golda Meir. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the conservative opposition Likud Party, made a similar claim. Meir Dagan maintained a diplomatic silence on who he would support except to tell his staff anyone would be better than Olmert.

In 2008 the diversity of threats to Israel and the world beyond its borders led to Mossad acting with even more deadly purpose. It is still the only intelligence service that has an officially sanctioned assassination unit: its kidon squad have continued to kill and kill again. “We fight fire with fire,” Mossad’s latest director, Meir Dagan, has told his staff. But where, in the past, it maintained silence about its executions, today it allows the details to emerge—in the belief it will deter its enemies. There is no convincing proof it has.

While today most people have a reasonable, if limited, idea of how spies work and understand terms like “double agent,” “safe house,” and “tradecraft” they will not know the total scale of international espionage and its economic cost. The demise of the Warsaw Pact, the Iraq War of 2003, and the continuance of al-Qaeda as the new godfather of terrorism has only increased the need for intelligence. Espionage exerts a perennial hold on the public imagination and appetite. My aim has been to satisfy that hunger.

The one great truth today is that if President Bush’s War on Terror, so optimistically launched in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, is to succeed, there is a need for other intelligence services to take careful note of how Mossad goes about its business. Mossad can be harsh beyond belief to its enemies. It often treats its own staff who fail with a ruthlessness no other agency—with the exception of the Chinese Secret Intelligence Service—would consider. But Mossad prides itself as rightly being regarded among the best, if not the very best. This book is not an apology for what Mossad does, but hopefully it continues to do what Meir Amit said after its first publication: “Tells it like it was—and like it is.”

—Gordon Thomas

Bath, England

November 2008

OTHER INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

ISRAEL

IDF Responsible for coordinating all intelligence for the General Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces. From time to time gives Mossad specific tasks.

AMAN Intelligence branch of the IDF with specific responsibility for gathering military, geographic, and economic intelligence. Its prime focus remains the activities of Israel’s Arab neighbors in the new millennium.