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Mudboy, I may have the names confused, may be Richardson I'm thinking of, but I'm sure Berger had to testify in the Starr Investigation, but that's nothing!
Remember Chinagate?? I bet Notra Trulock would have some choice comments about Mr. Sandy Berger.

Here's some interesting notes, mostly from Alamo Girl's downside legacy:

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http://www.alamo-girl.com/0211.htm

The Hill 3/17/99 Dick Morris "…Sandy Berger is about as qualified to be White House national security advisor as I am. He’s a political operative who had virtually no foreign policy experience before he became Tony Lake’s deputy. He was put into the National Security Council (NSC) under Lake so that Tony, who didn’t have a clue about politics, wouldn’t get cut apart in the congressional swamp. His job was to know politics. Tony’s was to know foreign policy…. When Lake and Christopher left, Berger got the top NSC job, the first professional politician ever to be named national security advisor. It was a major mistake….Clinton’s choice of Berger was, however, just right for his concept of foreign policy, that it is subordinate to domestic political and economic considerations. Where the president can intervene abroad and do well at home with domestic constituencies — as in Israel, Ireland and Haiti — foreign policy is important. But where global strategy is concerned, the prime motive is economic — to create jobs in America — and not diplomatic, military or strategic. He runs foreign policy like a governor promoting his state…

Stratfor.com 3/29/99 Freeper Newskeeper "…0100 GMT 990329 - The New Yorker Magazine has published an article by Sy Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, which claims that Saddam Hussein paid Russian Prime Minister Yvgeny Primakov $800,000 to obtain strategic material from Russia. Primakov is known to have extremely close ties to the Middle East since his days in the KGB and he knows Saddam well. What is interesting about the report is not whether or not it is true, since we have no doubt that Primakov is working closely with the Iraqis. What is interesting is that the administration has now decided to leak this information in an attempt to damage Primakov’s reputation. From the article it appears that the source of the story was Sandy Berger, or that he at least authorized the leak. If so, this will deepen tensions between the U.S. and Primakov. If he doesn’t fall, and corruption by itself does not destroy careers in today’s Russia, Clinton and Berger have now made a mortal enemy of Primakov. On a night where Russian negotiators are trying to broker a peace in Belgrade, this complicates matters substantially….."

Washington Times 3/22/99 Edward Timperlake and William Triplett authors of Year of the Rat "
…We believe that, for the national interest, President Clinton's National Security Adviser Samuel Sandy Berger should resign immediately…. Right out of the starting gate, Mr. Berger was an unfortunate choice for a national security position with the government because of his prior role as the chief Washington lobbyist for the Chinese government trade office. Having once had a personal financial stake in the promotion of pro-Beijing policies raises an immediate question of his present judgment and decision-making. If only for appearances, let alone personal ethics, he should have recused himself from anything connected to Beijing and its military ambitions…. We now know, for example, it was Mr. Berger who led the charge to repeal export controls on military useful satellites to China. According to White House Documents released to Congress in 1995, as soon as Secretary of State Warren Christopher made his decision to keep controls, Mr. Berger began campaigning from the White House to reverse the decision…. We also now know it was Mr. Berger who was deeply involved in saving Bernard Schwartz's Loral Space systems from the bloodhounds at Justice. Even though Mr. Berger's own staff was informed by the State Department that Loral's offenses were serious and knowing and that Loral was likely to be indicted for secret help it gave China's missile program, he recommended going ahead with a presidential waiver. As a result, the leading donor to President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign is very likely to escape prosecution. And we now know Mr. Berger was directly involved in the administration's decision to ignore a successful Chinese penetration of our nuclear weapons labs….

On Mr. Berger's watch, Chinese intelligence carried out a massive and successful penetration of the White House itself. A number of persons identified by the CIA as associates of Chinese intelligence poured millions of dollars in illegal campaign funds into the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election effort. The Riady family of Indonesia, criminal syndicate figure Ng Lapsing, convicted entrepreneur Johnny Chung, fugitive businessman Ted Sieong and indicted Democratic fund-raiser Maria Hsia all had such connections, all were major donors and collectively, they had hundreds of contacts with the White House, President Clinton or Vice President Al Gore. On Mr. Berger's watch, American anti-proliferation laws have not been applied to Chinese military companies when illegal campaign contributions to Clinton-Gore were part of the mix. High-ranking Chinese military spy and arms dealer Liu Chaoying laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars into the 1996 campaign, all the while secretly selling cruise missiles to Iran…. On Mr. Berger's watch, the Clinton administration inaugurated a program of rehabilitation for Chinese generals who have the blood of Chinese young people on their hands. As near as we can determine, at least six People's Liberation Army general officers with personal command and control responsibility for the 1989 Tiananmem Square massacre have received the royal treatment in Washington. Nearly all this occurred in secret.

On Mr. Berger's watch, Chinese military elements have occupied strategic islands hundreds of miles off the China coast. These military outposts sit astride shipping lanes in which all of Japan's energy needs are transported…. Finally, in a preview of the infamous definition of what is is, Mr. Berger told the Congress in 1997 there is no credible evidence COSCO (the China Ocean Shipping Co.) is engaged in a host of illegal activities, including arms smuggling. This misleading and dishonest statement completely ignores COSCO's pivotal role as the delivery boys for China's arms merchants. COSCO is on the record having delivered missiles to trouble spots and 2,000 fully automatic machine guns destined for drug gangs in the United States….."

Freeper Sakida reports 1/31/97 Jewish Telegraphic Agency "…The Washington Post reported that Berger was advised by White House lawyers in 1994 to sell a longtime family stock in the Amoco oil company. After initially questioning the advice, Berger agreed to sell the stock, but forgot to do so until reminded by White House lawyers to do so more than one year later, the Post said. Still, then-White House counsel Abner Mikva said he had no choice but to refer the case to the Justice Department's public integrity division. But White House counsel Jack Quinn said that Clinton was aware of the Justice Department probe of Berger, and believed Berger had committed a harmless oversight that should not interfere with his promotion, the Post said…."
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