On October 18 two United States intelligence documents pertaining to a potential Israeli attack on Iran were published on a Telegram account.
The account Middle East Spectator, which, according to their Telegram channel posts news and updates “mainly focused on Iran & Resistance Axis,” shared documents attributed to the U.S. Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency. The first is titled, “Israel: air force continues preparations for strike on Iran and conducts a second large-force employment exercise” and the other is called, “Israel: defense forces continue key munitions preparations and covert UAV activity almost certainly for a strike on Iran.”
The first report describes Israeli exercises that appeared to be rehearsals for a possible attack, but the document notes that “we cannot definitively predict the scale and scope of a strike on Iran.” The second report points out that Israel is already conducting drone operations over Iran and shifting the placement of its missiles in case Iran attacks the country again.
The documents highlight vast U.S. surveillance of Israeli actions.
A U.S. official told Axios’s Barak Ravid that the leak is concerning, but that it wouldn’t impact Israel’s future plans. According to the New York Times, officials are “divided” over the severity of the leak. “If no further documents come to light the damage would be limited, some of the officials say — besides revealing, once again, the degree to which the United States spies on one of its closest allies,” reported the Times. Other officials say that any exposure of an ally’s war plans is a serious problem.
An Israeli official told Haaretz that the U.S. has apologized to the Israeli government for the leak.
It’s unclear if the documents were leaked by a member of the U.S. intelligence community or obtained in a different way. In a Twitter post, Quincy Institute Executive VP Trita Parsi summarized the prevailing theories. Beyond a leak from a member of U.S. intelligence, he noted the possibility of an Iranian hack or a leak from a U.S. ally with access to the documents who is attempting to end Netanyahu’s war on Gaza.
In an interview with CNN House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed that an investigation has been launched. “There’s a classified-level briefing … we are following it closely,” said Johnson.
On Monday National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration was “deeply concerned” about the leak.
“I know the Department of Defense is investigating this, and I’m sure that as they work through that, they’ll try to determine the manner in which they did become public,” said Kirby. “We’re deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned, about any leakage of classified information in the public domain. That is not supposed to happen, and it’s unacceptable when it does.”
Journalist Ken Klippenstein published the leaked documents on his Substack on Saturday, October 19, and noted that the mainstream media had largely ignored the story until that point.
“Two Top Secret documents outlining Israel’s preparations for a large-scale attack on Iran – which would be Israel’s largest, and here’s what’s most interesting: the mainstream media is silent,” he wrote. “Colleagues at some of the biggest media outlets, from The New York Times to NBC, tell me that their outlets are aware of the documents. But it’s been days and no one in the sanctioned elite press is reporting on them (Axios only just reported their existence but declined to publish the documents themselves). As with the J.D. Vance Dossier, which the entire media knew about but refused to publish, it appears the media has once again lost its nerve – and its sense of what’s news.”
On Friday President Biden was asked if he knew when Israel would attack and if it had chosen targets. “Yes and yes,” he said.
This isn’t the first time that a U.S. leak has made headlines in recent years.
In March Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira pled guilty to six counts of “willful retention and transmission of national defense information” under the Espionage Act. Teixeria had posted intelligence reports and photographs of classified documents on a Discord server.
