Iraq War Israeli tower sabotage
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In the buildup to the Iraq War in late 2002 and early 2003, Israel proposed joining the U.S.-led coalition. Per John Kiriakou, the United States refused, fearing the move would cost it the cooperation of Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and even Syrian overflight clearance. Soon afterward, major communications towers across the western Iraqi desert, three-legged structures between 500 and 1,000 feet tall, began mysteriously tipping over, felled by explosives placed on one leg of each tower.

Kiriakou's vantage point, and his boss's reaction

In a later telling Kiriakou places himself precisely: at the time he was executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director for operations, "the most serious job I ever had in my life," with access to "literally everything." He dates the Israeli approach to a few days before the attack, renders their request as simply "we want in," and gives the American refusal in the same commercial terms: the coalition had been assembled out of Arab states, and as soon as Israel joined, all of them would drop out. "Just let us do it."

He describes the sabotage that followed as running to roughly 150 miles of towers in the western desert, each brought down by explosives on one of its three legs. The reaction he remembers is his boss's, and it was exasperation rather than alarm: "these damn Israelis, they just can't leave well enough alone. They just don't ever do as they're told."

The CIA's denial

When someone told the New York Times the towers were being toppled by an Israeli sabotage team, the paper approached the CIA to ask whether the agency was working with Israel on the operation. Per Kiriakou, the CIA denied any Israeli involvement and instead suggested the Iraqis were blowing up their own towers so they could later blame the United States.

The message, and the man who took it

Kiriakou has since placed himself at the exact point the refusal passed through. His job in the deputy director's office was to brief the deputy directors, the associate deputy directors, the heads of counterterrorism, counternarcotics, counterproliferation and counterintelligence and the chief of staff at seven o'clock each morning, and then to brief the Director at half past. Three days before the attack he opened one of those meetings with it: before the overnight reporting, he said, there was a message from the Israelis, who wanted in on the attack. The deputy director's answer was "Absolutely, positively not," and Kiriakou's own was that he had already told them no.

Two days before the invasion the towers began to go over, the three-legged structures built when the Iraqis electrified the western desert, with explosives placed on one leg of each for something like a hundred miles. The reaction Kiriakou remembers in the room was resignation rather than anger: "Those Israelis. They just don't know when to take no for an answer." His summary of the outcome is four words, "So, they got a little piece of the action."

See also

- Gerald Bull
- John Kiriakou
