Following the scandal-ridden resignation of British Secretary of State for Defense Liam Fox on Friday, British media have outed a possible new player in the affair: the Mossad. Fox resigned amid growing media scrutiny and a government investigation into his relationship with Adam Werritty, a close friend who frequently visited Fox at the defense ministry, accompanied him on official trips, and used business cards that said he was an adviser to the defense secretary, despite the fact that he served in no official government role. The media raised questions about the nature of the relationship and the sources of Werritty's income. Fox resigned before the publication of a full government report on his relationship with the neoconservative Werrity. He denied any wrongdoing but did say he had committed errors in judgment by mixing his professional and personal loyalties. Despite the resignation, however, the British media continue to be preoccupied with the scandal, bringing new revelations to light. On Sunday, the Independent wrote that the 33-year-old Werritty had developed close ties with the Israeli Mossad and was even involved in a plan to topple Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to the report, the Mossad held Werritty in high regard and at first believed that he was Fox's chief of staff. As a result, the weekly paper reported, he was able to arrange meetings at the highest levels of the Israeli government. An Israeli source told the Independent that there was "no question" that Werritty was regarded as anyone other than Fox's chief of staff and was seen as an "expert on Iran." Werritty was the former British defense secretary's best man at his wedding and once was his roommate. According to the report, Werrity visited Iran on several occasions and met Iranian opposition groups in Washington and London over the past few years. He was even debriefed by the M16 following his visits to the Islamic Republic. Werritty, who speaks some Persian, accompanied Fox to Iran when the latter was an opposition member and shadow secretary of state for defense. It is unclear how much time he spent in the country and whom he met there. Some of these revelations may comprise part of the inquiry launched last week by Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell into the nature of ties between Werritty and Fox. The British police confirmed that they are considering launching a fraud inquiry on Werritty. The inquiry would focus on whether the business cards he handed out misrepresenting himself as an adviser to the defense secretary allowed him to profit financially. The British Foreign Office also suspects that Werritty conducted his own "freelance" foreign policy work in conjunction with American neoconservatives in an effort to topple Ahmadinejad. This would have gone against official British policy, which is that the Iranian nuclear impasse must be resolved diplomatically. According to this scenario, Werritty may have acted as a go-between among the various officials involved in the plan to topple the Iranian president. In response to these revelations, a British government official was scathing in criticism of Werritty. "Ask yourself what he was doing there," he told the Independent on Sunday. "It's regime changed but only in his own mind. I can't think of anything more stupid, wandering round Iran flying the British flag. Does he really think the answer to Iran's nuclear ambitions which we all want to resolve is to have a bunch of people encouraging the opposition there in that way? We do have a responsibility to those people, and anything that's done like that has to have government approval, which he doesn't seem to have had." Fox resigned from his post on Friday following new revelations regarding his business relations with Werritty, who received contributions from a number of prominent businesspeople including Jewish-British businessman Poju Zabludowicz, 57, owner of the Tamares investment group, which has assets in Israel.
Possible Mossad link in British defense chief's fall from grace
Scandal rocks Britain as defense secretary resigns • Mossad may be involved, reveals the British Independent on Sunday • At scandal center is Adam Werritty, who befriended the secretary, American neoconservatives and Israeli politicians.
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