John Kiriakou has given a compact explanation of why an allied intelligence service would run operations against the country that arms it. The formulation turns on a gap he puts at five per cent.
The claim
Describing a long conversation he says he had with Tucker Carlson about Israeli intelligence activity in the United States, Kiriakou said that “the Israelis for decades now have been spread out all over the country trying to infiltrate our defense contractors and steal our defense secrets.”[1]
The motive, in his account, is not that Israel is denied American technology but that it is not given all of it: this happens “because we only give them 95% of what we have. They want the other 5%.”[1] Ted Rall responded that this was “the Israeli way,” and Kiriakou agreed with the characterisation.[1]
Why the target is the contractor
The significant element of Kiriakou’s version is the choice of target. The effort he describes is not aimed at government agencies but at defence contractors — the private firms that design and build American systems and that hold the engineering detail which the transfer relationship does not include. Spreading officers “all over the country” follows from that: contractors are distributed across many states rather than concentrated in Washington.
On this account the intelligence problem is created by the closeness of the relationship rather than in spite of it. A partner given ninety-five per cent knows precisely what the remaining five per cent is, where it is produced, and who holds it.
The setting
Kiriakou raised the subject while explaining his willingness to make common cause with figures on the political right, Carlson among them, on questions where he thinks they are correct. He described Carlson as a friend and said he considered him “100% right on Palestine,” and said that “parties be damned in our country,” we should join forces.[2] Purity tests, he argued, “do nothing but divide us.”[3] The Israeli intelligence discussion was offered as an example of a subject on which Carlson had been outspoken.[4]
Kiriakou did not name a specific case, contractor or officer, and did not put a figure on the number of operations. What he offered was a rule of thumb for the motive: the margin between what is given and what exists.