A recent leak of U.S. intelligence analysis on how Israel might retaliate against Iran for a massive missile attack against the Jewish state on October 1 has outraged Biden/Harris administration critics and further damaged U.S.-Israel relations.

Given their opposition to an Israeli attack on Iran, Biden/Harris officials had a strong motive to leak this information. However, the huge number of U.S. government employees who likely had access to this intelligence means there are many other suspects.

The intelligence in question was a one-page classified analysis by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) titled “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran and Conducts a Second Large-Force Employment Exercise, October 15-16, 2024.” This top-secret report was accompanied by a one-page chart that discussed the weaponry Israel might use to attack Iran.

The NGA assessment was made public after it was anonymously posted to a Telegram discussion group popular with Iranians.

Understandably, President Biden and other senior U.S. officials would want to know when Israel will attack Iran, what it will attack, the weapons it will use, and the timing of the attack. Normally, U.S. officials would just ask their Israeli counterparts for this information. However, because of the increasingly poor relationship between the Biden/Harris administration and the Netanyahu government and reported leaks to the press by White House officials of their confidential discussions with Israeli officials, the Israeli government does not trust the Biden/Harris administration. As a result, Israel has refused to share this type of sensitive Israeli national security information with the United States. The Biden/Harris administration, therefore, must rely on the U.S. Intelligence Community for information about Israeli plans to attack Iran.

There has been some speculation that a Biden/Harris administration official leaked the analysis to sabotage a possible Israeli attack on Iran that they fear could influence the November 5 presidential election. There is no evidence so far that any administration official was involved in such a gravely serious leak against Israel.

I believe it is more likely that the leak came from one of the large number of U.S. government employees who had access to the NGA report, possibly a low-level employee who sympathizes with Hamas or holds a grudge against Israel. There is substantial opposition from U.S. government employees to the Biden/Harris administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas War. 650 federal employees from 30 agencies signed a letter demanding a cease-fire in the war last November.  A group of federal employees called “Feds United for Peace” demonstrated outside the White House in May to protest the Biden administration’s support for Israel.  Several State Department employees have resigned over this issue.

Based on the classification markings on the NGA report, I believe it was probably shared with thousands of U.S. government employees from intelligence agencies, the Defense Department, the State Department, and many other agencies that hold top secret clearances. The NGA report may have been circulated as part of a daily intelligence briefing and probably was available to thousands of government employees with access to INTELINK, a classified intelligence internet system.

INTELINK reportedly is where Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira obtained highly classified intelligence that he posted to an online chat service starting in 2022. Teixeira was arrested for illegally disclosing this classified information in April 2023.  His trial is scheduled for November. Teixeira faces between 11 years and 16 years and 8 months in prison.

If a U.S. intelligence agency were to produce an assessment of how Israel planned to attack Iran, it would be extremely sensitive because of the harm such an analysis would do to Israel’s security if it was disclosed to Iranian officials. This analysis should have been subject to the highest possible security classifications with very limited distribution.

As a former intelligence officer, I believe this intelligence compromise resulted from a failure to properly secure the extremely sensitive NGA analysis. I believe it is very likely that large numbers of U.S. government employees had access to this analysis because senior U.S. officials did not learn from the Teixeira affair and failed to implement sufficient steps to limit access to sensitive U.S. intelligence.

This type of intelligence compromise harms American national security because it discourages U.S. allies from sharing critical threat intelligence with our country.

If Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, there will be a lot to fix with U.S. intelligence. Improving the protection of American secrets will be high on this list.

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Fred Fleitz previously served as National Security Council chief of staff, CIA analyst, and a House Intelligence Committee staff member. This article was cleared for classification purposes by the CIA Classification Prepublication Review Board.