U.S. Exonerates Israel on Patriot Sales to China

The State Department, giving Israel a “clean bill of health,” said Thursday that U.S. inspectors found no evidence that Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s government sold American Patriot antimissile technology to China.

“We plan no further action on this question with Israel and consider the matter closed,” State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said. She announced the result of a weeklong probe of intelligence reports accusing Israel of diverting the sophisticated technology.

The announcement cleared up one issue clouding the Washington-Jerusalem relationship. But it did not address the findings of a separate audit by the State Department’s independent inspector general, who reported a “systematic and growing pattern” of resale of U.S. weapons for at least nine years.

The audit did not identify the country responsible for the arms transfers, the type of technology involved or the recipient nations. But other sources said the report clearly was directed at Israel.

The Patriot matter apparently developed too recently to be included in the audit, which has been in progress since November, 1990.

Sherman Funk, the inspector general, told reporters that he personally described the evidence of illegal arms transfers to Secretary of State James A. Baker III last August. He said Baker immediately ordered new steps to halt the practice.

Tutwiler said the Administration had hoped to keep the Patriot issue separate from the findings in Funk’s audit. Even so, the timing of the two reports showed that Washington’s willingness to exonerate Israel on the sale of Patriots does not extend to the broader accusation of widespread diversion of U.S. weapons technology.

By censoring Israel’s name from the audit, however, the Administration gave Shamir’s government enough political cover to permit the two governments to patch up their outward relationship if they want to do so. With both Israel and the United States facing elections in which the Washington-Jerusalem relationship is sure to be an issue, the two governments have an incentive to gloss over their dispute.

Funk, who would not identify any of the countries involved, said he does not know if the violations have stopped. But he said there now are procedures in place that, if rigorously followed, should prevent most diversions.

The Israeli Embassy said it was satisfied with the outcome of the Patriot investigation.

“This is consistent with what the government of Israel has been saying from the very beginning,” an Israeli diplomat said. “I would hope that with this, the issue will be put to bed.”

Although Tutwiler used emphatic language in absolving Israel in the Patriot matter, she did not deny that the original accusation was based on intelligence reports. While acknowledging the difficulty of proving a negative, she declared: “As far as we are concerned, based on the results of this (inspection) mission, the Israeli government has a clean bill of health on the Patriot issue.”

Tutwiler said the U.S. government does not owe Israel an apology for the Patriot flap because the Administration had nothing to do with leaking the intelligence reports. She said Washington had hoped to raise the matter with Israel through diplomatic channels that could have been kept secret.

However, Funk’s audit noted that earlier attempts to discuss technology transfers in secret proved ineffective in stopping the commerce. “We found that government-to-government assurances are not an effective mechanism for providing end-use verifications,” the report said.

In his conversation with reporters, Funk said the State Department’s Politico-Military Bureau last April instructed the U.S. Embassy in the country audited to conduct detailed investigations of the weapons shipments only when specifically authorized by Washington to do so. Instead of trying to verify the way in which the arms were being used, the bureau said, the embassy should accept the verbal or written assurances of the local government.

He said the U.S. government did not follow a similar hands-off policy with any other government.

Funk said the cable was signed by Baker, as are all State Department cables. But he said the secretary of state apparently knew nothing of the policy until Funk told him last August.

“He acted immediately (to rescind the order),” Funk said. “Before we left the room there was a credible plan of action.”

Funk said his report was based on formal reporting from the CIA and other intelligence agencies, not on the word of a single agent or informant. Although he said his office did not try to verify the information, it was the “considered opinion of senior people in the intelligence community that what they reported has reliability.”

He conceded that he found no “smoking gun,” but he said the evidence was strong enough to require the department to take action. Until recently, nothing much was done, he said.