Epstein Secrets

e merit of being true: that Bibi was coming under pressure to shift our budgetary priorities away from defense toward social and economic issues. But Panetta understood that my request for a delay meant we were at least considering military action. He also realized that if we did launch an attack, it was i

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011891 / BARAK / 135 Yet especially with my main points of contact in the administration — first Bob Gates and then his successor, Leon Panetta, as Secretary of Defense —our broadly shared views, mutual respect, and the strength of the US-Israeli alliance outweighed any of that. Neither they,

significant numbers of US troops would begin arriving. As we weighed our final decision, I held a series of high-level meetings in Washington: with Panetta, national security adviser Tom Donilon, Hillary Clinton, and President Obama himself. Though not explicitly saying we were ready to attack, I left no

lasting cease-fire and, ideally, prevent Hamas from resupplying its rocket stockpiles through its smuggling tunnels from the Sinai. When we launched Operation Cast Lead on the morning of December 27, nearly all the Hamas forces were where we’d expected them to be. Two waves of air strikes, with over a hundred je

e merit of being true: that Bibi was coming under pressure to shift our budgetary priorities away from defense toward social and economic issues. But Panetta understood that my request for a delay meant we were at least considering military action. He also realized that if we did launch an attack, it was i

HOUSE _OVERSIGHT_028268 / BARAK / 135 Yet especially with my main points of contact in the administration - first Bob Gates and then his successor, Leon Panetta, as Secretary of Defense - our broadly shared views, mutual respect, and the strength of the US-Israeli alliance outweighed any of that. Neither they

n significant numbers of US troops would begin arriving. As we weighed our final decision, I held a series of high-level meetings in Washington: with Panetta, national security adviser Tom Donilon, Hillary Clinton, and President Obama himself. Though not explicitly saying we were ready to attack, I left no

lasting cease-fire and, ideally, prevent Hamas from resupplying its rocket stockpiles through its smuggling tunnels from the Sinai. When we launched Operation Cast Lead on the morning of December 27, nearly all the Hamas forces were where we'd expected them to be. Two waves of air strikes, with over a hundred je

oop presence in Afghanistan concludes in 2014. But the scaling down there and in Iraq has already freed up resources to go east. Earlier this year, Leon Panetta, the Pentagon chief, said the US would deploy 60 per cent of its naval assets in the Asia-Pacificand 40 per cent in the Atlantic — from the previou

that EFTA_R1_00462154 EFTA01976163 recently broke out in Israel and the Gaza Strip is that Hamas forced Israel's hand. Almost four years ago in Operation Cast Lead, the Jewish state pummeled Gaza in response to rocket fire into southern Israel. And for a time afterward, the rocket fire diminished. But it