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World Jewish News
Knesset still without panel for top secret intelligence affairs
08.06.2009
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has yet to form its subcommittee on Intelligence and Secret Services, Haaretz has learned, despite having been active for some three months.
The subcommittee is the chief civilian regulator with regard to sensitive intelligence issues. Its members are routinely briefed by intelligence chiefs; its meetings are considered to be top secret and details of them very rarely appear in the press.
The subcommittee discusses sensitive matters involving highly classified intelligence information such as the assassination of minister Rehavam Ze'evi, convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, the now defunct Libya nuclear program and Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities. Most MKs who serve on the committee have an extensive military or intelligence background.
A senior Knesset source told Haaretz last month that six out of the seven subcommittees of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee had already been created, and that the intelligence subcommittee would be finalized in the coming days.
The source said that since this last subcommittee is the most prestigious, it was necessary to "sweeten the pill" for MKs who were not going be asked to join it, by appointing them to other subcommittees first.
By Amos Harel and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondents
Источник: Haaretz
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