Posted on 07/08/2003 4:33:17 PM PDT by Courier
U.S. agency confirms sinking of USS Liberty was accident
By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent
WASHINGTON - New documents released this week by America's National Security Agency support Israel's version of a long-festering controversy between the two countries: Israel's sinking of an American spy ship, the USS Liberty, off the coast of Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Israel has always said it had no idea the ship was American, but conspiracy theorists and anti-Israel propagandists still claim Israel sank the ship in the full knowledge that it was American.
The documents, originally defined as top secret, were made public by Florida Judge Jay Cristol, who
has been investigating the Liberty incident for years and published a book on the subject last year. On Monday, the NSA gave him a transcript of conversations held by two Israeli Air Force helicopter pilots who were hovering over the Liberty as it was sinking, and these tapes confirm Israel's claim that the sinking of the ship, which killed 34 American servicemen and wounded 171, was a tragic error.
After the Liberty was bombed by both the Israel Air Force and the Israel Navy, the two helicopter pilots were summoned from their base to assess the damage and evaluate the possibility of rescuing the surviving crew members. An American spy plane, which had been sent to the area as soon as the NSA learned of the attack, recorded their conversations, which took place between 2:30 and 3:37 P.M. on June 8, the third day of the war.
The spy plane also recorded the orders radioed to the pilots by their supervisor at Hatzor Base, which instructed them to search for Egyptian survivors from the "Egyptian warship" that had just been bombed - thus supporting Israel's claim that it had believed the ship was Egyptian when it ordered it attacked. "Pay attention. The ship is now identified as Egyptian," the pilots were told.
Nine minutes later, Hatzor informed the pilots that it was not an Egyptian warship, but an Egyptian cargo ship. Only at 3:07 were the pilots first informed that the ship might not have been Egyptian at all: Hatzor told them that if they found Arabic-speaking survivors, they should be taken to El-Arish, but if they found English-speaking survivors, they should be taken to Lod. "Clarify by the first man that you bring up, what nationality he is, and report to me immediately," the supervisor instructed, according to the transcript. "It's important to know."
Then, at 3:12, one of the pilots informed Hatzor that he saw an American flag flying over the wounded ship. He was asked to investigate and determine whether it was really an American ship.
This is not the first time such transcripts have been made public: Israel gave its own recordings of the pilots' conversations to the British television station Thames in 1987. But conspiracy theorists charged that Israel had doctored the tapes before handing them over to the station in order to hide the fact that it sank the Liberty intentionally. No such imputation can be made about these new transcripts, as they were never in Israeli hands.
Israel has always said it attacked the Liberty, which America sent to the region to gather intelligence on the progress of the war, because it believed it was an Egyptian supply ship ferrying supplies to the Egyptian troops that Israel was then fighting. When it discovered the error, it immediately informed the Americans, apologized and paid compensation to the victims' families.
The incident was investigated by inquiry commissions in both Israel and the United States, and both concluded that it had, indeed, been a tragic error. Nevertheless, the controversy never died. In 1979, one of the survivors, James Ennes, published a book accusing Israel of bombing the American ship deliberately. Ennes claimed an Israeli spy plane had hovered over the ship all morning and had surely identified it as American, since the American flag was clearly visible.
A later book, written by James Bamford, charged that Israel sank the ship in order to keep America from learning of its plans to attack Syria, and further claimed that the NSA had tapes of conversations among Israeli pilots that not only confirmed this, but also proved that the tapes released by Israel had been doctored.
Another claim that appears frequently on the dozens of Internet sites devoted to the affair is that Israel sank the ship to conceal a mass murder of Egyptian soldiers on the Sinai peninsula.
In its letter to Cristol, the NSA stressed that, contrary to the claims that often appear in such books and Web sites - that the agency has tapes from both the Liberty and from a nearby American submarine that confirm Israel's guilt - the only tapes that exist were those made by the spy plane and given to Cristol this week.
"It's the last piece of intelligence that remained classified, and every rational person that will read it will understand that there is no truth in these conspiracy theories against Israel," Cristol said Tuesday. But he added: "Those who hate Israel, who hate Jews, and those who believe in conspiracy will not be convinced by anything."
Cristol, a former U.S. navy pilot and legal officer, began investigating the Liberty incident 14 years ago. Since publishing his book, which vindicates Israel, he has received threats and been accused of being an Israeli agent. "I take this lightly, but I am saddened to learn that there is this kind of hate toward Israel," he said.
No, the Israelis' only mistake was ignoring the thirteen red and white stripes and 50 stars on a blue background which was flying from the Liberty on a clear day. Try to sell your BS to the families of the 34 dead...I don't think you'll have any buyers.
And, of course, Arab nations never ever use various ruses, such as feigned surrenders and false flags.
Oh, waitaminute, they do.
Try to sell your BS to the families of the 34 dead...I don't think you'll have any buyers.
The NSA's own intercepts disagree with you.
Which does absolutely no good for planes coming in from directly astern.
Yet, it was strafed and shot at for 25 minutes, by those who claim they didn't know it was American.
Their own radio chatter indicates that this was the case. Are you saying that this was merely an extremely clever deception exercise? That they pulled it off without one slipup?
I'll never buy the Israeli story, or this guy's willingness to overlook FACTS.
What should I make of your willingness to overlook facts that you don't like?
As if the NSA never resorted to subterfuge, camoflage and ruse's to propagandize.
OK, so now what? It wasn't the IDF's fault...or Israel's...or even the USS Liberty's fault.....it was a fear by Israel that the USS Liberty was really an Arab "Trojan Horse"!!! And an Egyptian "Trojan Horse" hauler, at that! The el-quseir!
That's a new one!
This is one of the most disgusting comments I've seen on Free Republic.
Could you guys send a link to his message to your ping list please? It is:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/942571/posts?page=113#113
I think he should hear from people what they think about that statement.
============
Against my better judgment, I will as a favor, with apologies for the content (as well as the grammar) to the recipients.
Jew-haters are just that. You don't confront that kind of bigotry rationally. As transparent as they are, they frequently revel in the notoriety, like a pig in *hit, or a dog in a fresh, rotting carcass. All the troll is doing is pulling your chain.
Curious that you mention that.
The NSA's account of what the Liberty was doing at the time of the attack worked during the Cold War.
The claim, repeated by Ennes and others of the Liberty crew, was that they were verifying that the Tu-16 Badgers flown by the Egyptian Air Force were actually flown by Russians. According to this legend, which the crew members repeat, they'd just confirmed that the Badgers were flying at the time of the attack and the Liberty's COMINT technicians overheard Russian pilot chatter on UHF, only minutes before the attack.
There's only one small glitch in the story.
Those planes were on the ground in Alexandria to keep the Israeli Air Force from bombing them, and they stayed grounded throughout the entire war. None were flying at the time of the attack, and the Liberty crew therefore could not have intercepted airborne UHF signals from the planes.
Had the Cold War continued into the 21st century, we wouldn't have known that detail. But the truth came out after the USSR imploded.
So what was the real mission of the Liberty? And why have Ennes et al lie about it all these years?
< sarcasm > General Jackson, don't you know it's all the joooze? The joooze! < end sarcasm >
The troll will have a short life at FR.
Total BS!
Enter the wrong co-ordinates into a missile's flight computer and you get the Red Chinese embassy going "Boom!". Much like rocket scientists entering meters for feet on a certain Mars Rover mission not too long ago. Seeing an aircraft on radar and not eye-balling it like you would had you been 50 yards off the side of a US Navy ship is a contrast, don't you think?
Apologists for Israeli malfeasance, notwithstanding. The motivations for sweeping this incident under the rug aren't known....yet. Secrets die hard with our government. The same with Israel's. Perhaps, American public opinion would have gone against continuing US support for Israel. In light of our own VietNam involvement at the time, perhaps the powers that be wanted this "unfortunate incident" to be forgotten quickly. Maybe, there were other reasons. Few know for sure. I do know that I trust the sworn words of those who survived.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.