Former US defense chief against Pollard release

The United States’ former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this week that the scheduled release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in November was a bad idea.

Rumsfeld said he advised President George W. Bush to “forcefully” refuse Israeli entreaties to free Pollard.

Rumsfeld, Bush’s defense secretary from 2001 to 2006, posted a letter on Twitter that he wrote to Bush in March 2001, ahead of a visit by Israeli officials early in Bush’s presidency.

“Releasing Pollard was a bad idea in 1998 & 2001,” Rumsfeld said in his tweet. “It is not a better idea today.”

Rumsfeld copied the March 16, 2001, letter to Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney.

“It is possible that in the meeting you will be asked to take action to free Pollard,” Rumsfeld wrote. “Any step to free Pollard would be enormously damaging to our efforts to keep spies out of government. My suggestion would be to come on very forcefully and say not no, but definitely no — no today, tomorrow and the next day, and that is not a matter that you would consider during your administration.”

In another tweet on the topic, Rumsfeld said “releasing spy Jonathan Pollard doesn’t make the #IranDeal any less of a disaster for Israel and the free world,” in reference to speculations the upcoming release was meant to placate Israel following the Iranian nuclear deal signed July 14,

Rumsfeld, who was also defense secretary during the presidency of Gerald Ford in the mid-1970s, attached to his letter to Bush a 1998 letter he had drafted and co-signed with six other former defense secretaries — including Cheney, who served in the post during the George H. W. Bush presidency — urging President Bill Clinton not to accede to Israeli requests to free Pollard.