Posted on 07/19/2004 5:07:42 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
AP: Clinton Adviser Probed in Terror Memos
3 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By JOHN SOLOMON
WASHINGTON - President Clinton (news - web sites)'s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.
Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI (news - web sites) agents armed with warrants. Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing.
Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.
"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement to the AP.
Berger served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites). Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the commission.
The FBI searched Berger's home and office with warrants earlier this year after employees of the National Archives told agents they believed they witnessed Berger put documents into his clothing while reviewing sensitive Clinton administration papers, officials said.
When asked, Berger said he returned some of the classified documents, which he found in his office, and all of the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but said he could not locate two or three copies of the highly classified millennium terror report.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
CLINTON ADVISOR INVESTIGATED
Berger took classified terror documents
SWEET!!!
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/7/19/221714.shtml
But burger didn't call Linsdey, Archive officials did!
If we are living right, one day we will see the video of Sandy Berger, sweating and looking over his shoulder while he stuffs stuff in his pants. Bwahahahaha!
Any mention of Berger being a Kerry advisor?
Give'em time. They haven't gotten the talking points yet.
How is she going to introduce Bubba now?? As the man who was able to deceive the people "because he could".
I think Lanny "Lackey" Davis is one.
A Democrat with his pants down, same old same old.
The plot thickens.
Amb. Pete Peterson, a former prisoner of war captured in Vietnam, is the first American ambassador to that country since the war.
American missing in action
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And finally, Mr. Ambassador, what's the current situation with the American missing in action? There were around 1,500, right, who were unaccounted for. What's the status of those people now and what do you think will -- when will that be closed, those cases be closed?
PETE PETERSON: I can't answer the timeline. We're working very, very hard and have been very successful, I might add. It's one of the untold stories in the nation, I'm afraid, and we're trying to get the word out to the extent and to the commitment that both nations have placed to the fullest possible accounting effort. There are roughly 1,500 cases in Vietnam that are not yet fully determined. However, we have enormous amount of information on every one of those cases. And I would suggest that we're making some major progress in that. We continue our excavations. And the Vietnamese cooperation on this is just excellent. In fact, I'm calling it a partnership now. They have 300,000 MIA's, and we're helping them make their determinations, they're helping us with our determinations and in that process, I think in the years ahead we will be able to conclude this very, very honorable, humanitarian effort.
******
Ambassador Peterson has extensive experience in the private sector having formed Peterson and Associates, Inc., a general contracting company in Tampa, Florida and later served as the General Manager of Odom Tank Company, a general contracting firm located in Marianna, Florida. In 1984, he entered into a partnership to create CRT Computers, Inc., a currently active full service computer enterprise with facilities in Marianna, Florida.
Ambassador Peterson is a native of Nebraska, but has resided in Florida for more than 40 years. He is a graduate of the University of Tampa, Tampa , Florida and served on the faculty of Florida State University for over 5 years as the administrator of a specialized therapeutic mental health program at the University.
Ambassador Peterson is married to Vi Le and has two children, Michael of Jacksonville, Florida, and Paula of Bascom, Florida.
******
Q Ambassador, here it is, 25 years after the war and the President of the United States is here dealing with the communist government of Vietnam, trying to establish cordial relations. With all due respect, sir, to you and to others who have served in the war, might not the families of those who perished in that war ask what did their loved ones die for?
AMBASSADOR PETERSON: Well, each of those families would have to answer that for themselves, of course. I would never try to preempt their feelings, because I know -- I know -- how they feel. My family, too, suffered greatly. In fact, I personally suffered every imaginable hurt and problem that one could, short of death.
But I am convinced that those who lost their lives, those who suffered here would be among the first to stand up and say, we don't want this to happen again. And that by constructive effort and engagement on our part, the United States can make sure that we do not have a circumstance arise that could give the opportunity for misunderstanding, and then therefore an opportunity for the renewal of a conflict either here or in the region.
So my view on it is that you have an opportunity here to prevent. And I know that those people who served here, I think every single one, even though they have painful memories, would engage with me and others to prevent any similar conflict in the future. And that's why I'm here.
Q It's such a sensitive topic about these MIA excavations and continuing search for our soldiers. Do you foresee a day when the administration, whichever administration it is, finally says, enough, rest in peace, let's withdraw, we'll stop?
AMBASSADOR PETERSON: No, I don't see any administration doing that. I don't see any politician doing that. I certainly don't see any ambassador doing that. And I don't see any military general doing that. The decision of fullest possible accounting -- and that is difficult to define, because there's no written word on that -- it has to be defined by the American people, and most assuredly by America's veterans and the families of those who were lost here.
Fullest possible accounting is a great descriptive, but it's incredibly difficult to define. And it has to be defined ultimately, in my view, by those who served here and by those whose lives were most deeply touched by our engagement here.
Anything else?
Q Not too long ago at least one Vietnamese official, military official, complained about the lack of cooperation from the United States' side in finding -- in searching for the missing North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Now with the release of these new documents or the transfer of these new documents by the United States, do you see that as a response to that complaint, or were these documents in the pipeline already?
AMBASSADOR PETERSON: No, it was clearly not a response. In fact, I'm aware of that statement and I just feel that that person was uninformed.
LOL. Then Berger is screwed.
You bet. Scratch Sandy off!
Nothing to see here, move along. Sandy or Deutsch a few years ago wouldn't hurt a fly... ;(
As expected just went to CNN web site and there's nothing.
I see that it mentions it. God, this should really be a huge hit for the Kerry campaign. This is devastating.
Don't forget, we are now just hearing about Iran's connection to Al-Qaeda, I wonder if the Bush Administration was never briefed about this Intel on Al-Qaead upon his arrival because the Bush Administration would immediately ask why nothing was done about it. In other words Clinton didn't want to brief President Bush on something he swept under the rug.
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