The reality, senior DOD officials assert, is that when Pentagon experts Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin met with a handful of Iranians in Italy more than a year ago–the Iranians had offered, through an American intermediary, to give the United States information on terrorism–the DOD pair were startled to find Ghorbanifar there and argued against his remaining. (The CIA once labeled Ghorbanifar “an intelligence fabricator and nuisance.”) Then, one of the DOD pair “ran into” Ghorbanifar again in Paris this summer. End of story, they say. “There is no Defense Department back-channel on Iran,” a senior official insisted. The Italy meetings were authorized by the White House, say officials, though the “unscheduled” Paris session was not.
