I recently ran across “this 2004 report from the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee”:http://www.knesset.gov.il/committees/eng/docs/intelligence.htm about Israeli intelligence while I was going through my files. Titled “Report on the Committee of Enquiry into the Intelligence System in Light of the War in Iraq,” the whole document is pretty interesting and perhaps relevant to some current issues.

The report, obviously, is mostly about Iraq. But some other countries receive mentions.

There’s not much on Iran, but the report does point out that the Israeli intel community “earned significant success” in Iran “by being *among the first intelligence services* to detect its efforts to develop a military nuclear industry already in the mid-Nineties.”

In my opinion, though, the _really_ interesting stuff is about Libya. The report notes that

bq. In recent months, the State of Israel was *surprised to discover that Libya, under Muammar Gaddafi, has been intensively engaged in the development of a military nuclear capability*…

And it goes on to discuss US/UK intel cooperation with Israel:

bq. *The intelligence services of the USA (and of Britain) did not share with their colleagues in Israel in real time their recent and significant exposures of the Libyan nuclear program,* and even *concealed from the State of Israel the steps taken vis-à-vis the Libyan regime* in the apparently successful attempt to bring about the liquidation of its nuclear industry and persuade it not to continue the development of its capabilities in the nuclear sphere.

Lastly, please forgive a bit of repetition, but I quite liked the summary by MK Dr. Yuval Steinitz (the Commission’s Chair) of the Libya issue:

bq. In Libya, where they failed to disclose the overall picture and *woke up one fine morning* to learn from foreign intelligence services of the real scope of that country’s efforts *to obtain nuclear weapons that could threaten Israel’s very existence.*

Happy Monday