The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (72 page)

66
“He
[
Asgari
]
held a very, very senior position”:
Dafna Linzer, “Former Iranian Defense Official Talks to Western Intelligence,”
Washington Post
, March 8, 2007.

67
Asgari was rewarded with a promotion:
Bergman,
Secret War with Iran
, p. 61.

68
“Iran has a desire …”:
Ali Reza Asgari, interview,
As-Safir
, Associated Press News Archive, April 11, 1991.

69
the Revolutionary Guard “is not a militia …”:
Magnus Ranstorp,
Hizb’Allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis
(London: Macmillan Press, 1997), pp. 34, 84, 215. The BBC identified him as “Hadi Reza Askari.”
Hadi
is an honorific title, meaning “guide” or “leader.”

70
Asgari “knows dirty secrets …”:
Robert Baer, “Could a Missing Iranian Spark a War?”
Time
, March 22, 2007.

71
“It was an organized defection”:
Georges Malbrunot, “Passed Over for Promotion, Iranian General Defects,”
Le Figaro
, March 13, 2007; Laura Rozen, “Where Is Ali-Reza Asgari?”
Politico
, December 31, 2010.

72
“willingly cooperating”:
Linzer, “Former Iranian Defense Official.” See also Ivan Watson, “Understanding the Case of Ali Reza Askari,”
All Things Considered
, National Public Radio, April 2, 2007. Watson interviewed Robert Baer.

73
“longtime Western intelligence agent”:
Julian Borger, “Defection or Abduction? Speculation Grows After Iranian General Goes AWOL in Turkey,”
Guardian
, December 8, 2007.

74
“
[
any
]
Iranian defector was highly valued …”:
Vincent Cannistraro, e-mail to author, March 1, 2013.

75
Asgari gave the Americans actionable intelligence:
Bergman,
Secret War with Iran
, p. 294.

76
“This type of defection …”:
Malbrunot, “Passed Over for Promotion.”

77
“a valuable asset for Western intelligence agencies …”:
Borzou Daragahi, “Iranian Exile Speaks Out Against Militia He Once Supported,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 9, 2009.

78
“Salvation Committee”:
Ebrahimi later said that this organization was renamed the “Rescue Committee,” and that it was run by the U.S. State Department to encourage Iranian defections. He said he was the only Iranian who served on the committee. “Interview: Amiri Was Not Who He Pretended He Was,”
Amir Farshad Ebrahimi
(blog), August 7, 2010,
www.farshadebrahimi.com/2010_08_01_archive.html
.

79
“We were at the
[
Iranian
]
embassy together …”:
Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Iranian Defectors Provide Crucial Intel,”
Newsmax
, April 1, 2008.

80
“I brought my computer along …”:
Erich Follath and Holger Stark, “The Story of Operation Orchard: How Israel Destroyed Syria’s Al Kibar Nuclear Reactor,”
Der Spiegel Online
, November 2, 2009.

81
Asgari was whisked to Washington, D.C.:
Timmerman, “Iranian Defectors.” Amir Farshad Ebrahimi was Timmerman’s source for this information. Washington has still not officially acknowledged Asgari’s defection. According to one CIA source, Asgari is not on the official list of declassified defectors.

82
“He lived in Lebanon …”:
Linzer, “Former Iranian Defense Official.”

83
Asgari was brought to a CIA safe house:
Bergman,
Secret War with Iran
, p. 351.

84
Iran was helping Syria to develop nuclear weapons:
Ibid., p. 358.

85
A German defense ministry official revealed:
Associated Press, “Iran Ex-deputy Minister Jailed in Israel,”
NBCNews.com
, November 15, 2009,
www.nbcnews.com/id/33951026/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/wid/7/#.USZmVFriqKx
.

86
Israeli air strike on a Syrian nuclear reactor:
A lengthy Library of Congress report prepared by the Federal Research Division reported, “Asgari’s defection was significant because he was deeply engaged in establishing Iranian links with Hezbollah. Asgari seems to have provided intelligence to the Israelis and may have been the source of the intelligence they used in Operation Orchard to strike Syria’s nuclear reactor.” “Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile,” December 2012, p. 34,
www.iranwatch.org/government/us-congress-libraryofcongressreport-1212.pdf
.

87
Mughniyeh’s cell phone numbers and recent photographs:
Daniel Byman,
A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 262.

88
“It may be no coincidence”:
Ronen Bergman, “Bracing for Revenge,”
New York Times
, February 18, 2008.

89
“somewhere in Texas”:
Follath and Stark, “Story of Operation Orchard.” In the spring of 2013 Asgari visited Leidschendam, in the Netherlands, where he gave testimony before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, authorized by the United Nations to investigate the 2005 assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri.

90
Public Law 110:
This 1949 law allows the CIA to bring in no more than one hundred essential aliens each year: “Whenever the Director, the Attorney General, and the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization shall determine that the admission of a particular alien into the United States for permanent residence is in the interest of national security or essential to the furtherance of the national intelligence mission, such alien and his immediate family shall be admitted to the United States for permanent residence without regard to their inadmissibility under the immigration or any other laws and regulations, or to the failure to comply with such laws and regulations pertaining to admissibility: Provided, That the number of aliens and members of their immediate families admitted to the United States under the authority of this section shall in no case exceed one hundred persons in any one fiscal year” (50 U.S. Code 403—Sec 403h).

91
“At the unclassified level …”:
e-mail to author, April 17, 2013, from a former NSC official in the Bush administration. Fran Townsend, a former NSC official who worked on counterterrorism; Mike Singh, former NSC official; and Charles Allen, a former counterterrorism official with the Department of Homeland Security, all declined to respond to questions about Asgari.

92
“The value of information that Asgari could provide …”:
Frederick Hutchinson, e-mail to author, February 28, 2013.

93
Schmuel Litani
, interview, Tel Aviv, October 18, 2012.

  
1
“I had to relearn how to move my body …”:
Anne Dammarell, “Hidden Fears, Helpful Memories: Aftermath of the 1983 Bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut” (M.A. thesis, Georgetown University, 1994), pp. 24, 30.

  
2
“I hate to say it”: Meir Harel
, interview, Tel Aviv, October 18, 2012.

  
3
“There was no deep trick to it”:
Thomas Powers,
Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda
(New York: New York Review of Books, 2002), p. xv.

  
4
“Bin Laden reportedly showed particular interest …”:
Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton,
The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), pp. 90–91.

  
5
“Americans are blamed …”:
Ibid., p. 76.

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