Picture from recent backyard BAR-B-Q at Bill O'Rielly's house.
Posted on 10/10/2005 5:21:14 PM PDT by MangoCrazy
In a Cliff Clavin voice: Well, it's a little known fact that you are absolutely correct Miss Marple.
Somehow, we have been seeing less and less of each other..
partly because it is hunting season...and he will be out of the country for a while in November...
But, I have told my daughter that it must be rough raising TWO children....and she shakes her head, and says she knows.
BUT, she loves him...she says...so I won't do anything to get between them..I just won't go out of my way to be around HIM....LOL
Online NewsHour
FREEH RETIRES
June 22, 2001
Politics and diplomacy
snip
RAY SUAREZ: Elsa Walsh, you spent a lot of time with Louis Freeh.
ELSA WALSH: I did.
RAY SUAREZ: And the time that included going overseas and seeing the expanded work of the bureau. Tell us about what we should know about the man.
ELSA WALSH: Well, I spent about a year traveling around with him and talking to him. I think that, you know, there were a lot of problems on Louis Freeh's watch, but they weren't mistakes of bad faith or of malice. And he was a person, as Kris said, who was determined to fix things when a problem arose. I think that yesterday when you saw the indictments in the Khobar Towers case, which is what I wrote about, that was probably the most important case to Louis Freeh. As George Tenet, who was the CIA director, said, you can see all of Louis Freeh's values on his sleeve in the Khobar case, the tenacity, the determination, the empathy for the families, the sort of unwillingness to give up. And I think that when you spend time with Freeh, he has a very disarming presence. He comes across as quite humble, and most people of his stature in Washington suck a lot of air out of the room, but he isn't that way at all, but you really can seriously under estimate the steeliness that's underneath that demeanor, because Freeh is a gentle bulldog.
RAY SUAREZ: Do you also see his - the strength of his personal diplomacy in getting the Saudis to come around and cooperate?
ELSA WALSH: Freeh said to me once - he said -- you can do fabulous investigative work but unless you have good personal relationships you're never going to get a case done. I think that when he came into the FBI, he saw that the relationship with the CIA and the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, were completely dysfunctional and he made a big effort to try to improve those relation... that relationship to the point that when George Tenet, who is the CIA director, became the CIA director, he asked Director Freeh to swear him in because they both wanted to make a statement that we were now two agencies that were working together. In the Khobar Tower case, Louis Freeh felt that the Clinton administration was dragging its feet on it... on this case. Sandy Berger, who was the National Security Advisor at that time, said that was not the case.
Regardless of what that interpretation was, Louis Freeh really worked on the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Vandar, and also established relationships with people in Saudi. He went there over and over again. It was oftentimes in the FBI they joked that Louis Freeh is the only sort of presidentially appointed street agent. In the Khobar case he did that and he did that with the crown prince. It got to the point where Freeh thought that the Clinton administration was dragging its feet so much that he went to the senior President Bush, George Bush's father, and said, "help me out because the Saudis say that they believe the Clinton administration is no longer interested in this case." So Freeh did something that - you know -- some people might consider quite insubordinate. And he asked Bush to make an appeal. And it worked.
Mo1....you are kidding, I hope...you must be a youngster if you don't know who Tab Hunter is!!!
OR, I am an oldster...one of the two!!!! LOL
O'reilley had a clintonista bashing Freeh, but nobody to stand up for what Freeh said. Typical O'reilley crapfest.
Nope .. I don't remember him ... sorry
I'm 41
billyblytheclinton is the most filthy human in politics. If there is filth occurring, billyblythe is wallowing in it.
These crooks have proven the ease with which they lie: Not one thing they say can be assumed to be true. A liar lies.
Picture from recent backyard BAR-B-Q at Bill O'Rielly's house.
You just reminded me....
I was still "reeling" from the forceful way that Hannity told his listeners to not waste their money on Freeh's book....when he started to promo an upcoming segment with Dick Morris...
He mentioned Morris' newest book Hillary V. Condi...and said it was "the best book he ever wrote" and went ON and ON about how good it was...and everyone should read it!
blech..... I don't mean this as a bash Hannity thing...but c'mon Sean...it is unfair to "dis" a book and not say why....and then slobber all over another book in the very next segment...jeez!
Oh....I remember when I saw Peyton Place for the first time...I thought it was so "dirty", and felt so grown-up watching it!
I grew up in Boulder Colorado, which has beautiful mountains and snow....but, whenever I saw that movie...and then the TV show (not near as good)...I fell in LOVE with the scenery and dreamed of living in that town....
The theme is very memorable and good...I know what you mean.
A very apt description. And I agree.
Oh...now I didn't know that...
perhaps that could help contribute...but if you heard him...he seemed pretty down on it...or he wouldn't have told people NOT to get it...
Jeez, he could have made points about his perceived lack of credibility...and I would have listened and weighed his views against whether I wanted to get it or not..
BUT, to come out and just say "I am warning you not to waste your money", seems inflexible and not open to interpretation...which I am sure that Sean would want from a host towards a book he wrote, I bet.
Isn't there a thread about the Saudis view of that meet? Thought I saw it earlier but can't find it now.
Louie Freeh:
"We made a promise in 1997 that we will not forget," FBI director Louis Freeh said. "The case last week offers only a beginning. I'm not a politician. I'm not a diplomat. I'm a policeman and that's the way I conducted this case."
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh in December blamed Iranian military officials for the 1996 deaths of 19 U.S. airmen in Saudi Arabia. Testifying as a witness in a civil trial brought by families of 12 of the airmen against the government of Iran, Freeh said there was "overwhelming evidence" that Iranian officials planned and financed the attack on Khobar Towers, a military housing complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
As FBI director, Freeh was "heavily involved" in the investigation, which identified six Saudi Arabians as the actual bombers.
"They admitted they were members of Saudi Hezbollah," Freeh said. "They admitted complicity in the act. And they implicated senior Iranian officials in the funding and planning of the attack."
In 2001, 13 Saudis and a Lebanese man were indicted on murder and conspiracy charges in relation to the attack, which occurred shortly before 10 p.m. on June 25, 1996. In addition to the 19 airmen killed, more than 370 Americans and Saudis were wounded in the bombing. The terrorists, who also may have been assisted by the Lebanese Hezbollah, amassed large amounts of plastic explosives, packed them into a converted tanker truck and detonated it outside the complex.
******
June 22, 2001
The indictment explains that the terrorist activities leading to the 1996 Khobar blast began as early as 1993, when members of Hezbollah began extensive surveillance to find American targets in Saudi Arabia.
In 1995, according to the indictment, the terrorists focused on Khobar Towers, which housed U.S. Air Force personnel, assigned to the Persian Gulf region.
"After amassing large amounts of plastic explosives, the terrorists, assisted by and as yet, an unidentified member of the Iranian-assisted and supported Lebanese Hezbollah, referred to in the indictment as John Doe, these terrorists converted a tanker truck into a huge bomb. They denoted that bomb near the north face of the building number 131 at Khobar Towers shortly before 10 p.m. on June 25, 1996", Mr. Ashcroft told a press conference.
The indictment further explains that "elements of the Iranian government inspired, supported and supervised members of Saudi Hizbollah". In particular, the indictment alleges that the charged defendants "reported their surveillance activities to Iranian officials and were supported and directed in those activities by Iranian officials". This indictment does not name as defendants individual members of the Iranian government.
Immediately after the bombing, the leaders of the conspiracy fled Saudi Arabia by using fake passports, FBI Director Louis Freeh told the news conference, adding that those charged in the indictments "are not all in custody".
snip
American sources observed that the Kingdom had become less co-operative after the election of Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami as Iran’s President in 1997, the same year when the Islamic Republic became the Head of the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Conference.
According to well-informed Iranian sources, Tehran had promised the Saudis to end its support for Middle East terrorist groups on condition that the Kingdom withholds passing to Americans sensitive documents capable of indicting the Islamic Republic in the Khobar deadly explosion.
In January, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdalazizhad stated that "a handful'' of Saudi nationals had been detained for links to the bombing but that the main suspects were still at large.
"There will come a day not far away when we will say who is behind Khobar'' Nayef had told a Saudi newspaper, assuring that "so far, no foreign country was involved".
snip
One of those charged was Hani al-Sayegh, a Saudi national who was handed back to Saudi officials by the United States in 1999. He played a far larger role in the attack than initially believed when he was returned to Saudi Arabia, officials said.
Sayegh was detained in the United States for two years before being expelled in 1999 to face charges in Saudi Arabia.
snip
The motivation for the Saudi Hezbollah to allegedly bomb Khobar Towers would be to embarrass the Saudi royal family and show offence that the presence of "pagan" U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the sacred land of Islam, presents, terrorism experts said.
snip
The indictment said the Saudi Hezbollah, outlawed in Saudi Arabia, frequently meets and trains in Lebanon, Syria or Iran.
The group recruits young men during religious pilgrimages to the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine in Damascus and then transports them to Lebanon for indoctrination, the indictment said.
The underground Saudi group formed in the early 1990s over issues of repression, Ken Katzman, senior Gulf analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said. "That's when we started seeing Saudi Hizbollah get very active," he said.
Also around that time, Iran was trying to turn Saudi Hezbollah into a more radical and active opponent of the Saudi regime, that Iran’s supreme leader, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had proclaimed being traitor to Islam.
Before the indictments were announced, sources close to the investigation told CNN that U.S. law enforcement might not have enough evidence to indict Iranian intelligence agents; though U.S. officials have said for months they are suspected of helping to plan the attack.
Pentagon sources said there has been evidence ever since the truck bomb attack that linked Iranians to the blast, and former Defence Secretary William Perry once publicly identified Iran as a suspect. Other U.S. officials said the United States has long suspected members of Iranian security forces of being linked to the attack on Khobar Towers at the King Abdul Aziz air base.
and there it is...
Oh, well, then...I apologize for assuming....which we all know what happens when one ASSUMES something...
I am sorry...and jealous, kiddo!!!
Tension between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia over investigation
In June 1998, the FBI withdrew all but one of its investigative teams from Saudi Arabia. The investigation had been unable to come up with any credible evidence and there was a great deal of ill-feeling between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Each side accused the other of withholding crucial information and cooperation.
The FBI claimed that they were refused permission to interrogate suspects arrested by the Saudis, and that they were not even allowed to inspect the getaway car used by the terrorists for the first few months of the investigation. Freeh traveled to Saudi Arabia three times in unsuccessful efforts to win permission for his agents to interview the Saudi suspects. So far, the Saudis have only supplied tapes and transcripts of their interrogations. Recently they agreed to allow U.S. agents observe interrogations.
The Saudis, for their part accused the Americans of "high-handedness," claiming that the FBI refused to credit the evidence gathered by the Saudi police. The Saudis claim that their evidence shows that Saudi Shiite Muslims carried out the attack with the assistance of Iran. However, until recently the Americans were insisting that the evidence amounts to "no more than hearsay," and that the Shiite minority, despite their religious connections to Iran, were merely a convenient scapegoat.
However, it is certain that any Iranian connection to the attack could prove very problematic for the United States. The U.S. has been at great pains to improve its relations with Iran since the rise of the current, comparatively moderate, government Any proof that Iran was directly responsible for a bombing that killed American citizens would place the administration in a real dilemma as to what action to take.
Sources: Associated Press, ABCNews, Reuters
Thank you again for all of this information...I am really enjoying reading this...
BTW, I hate to admit this..but I am drawing a blank tonight...who is the FBI director now?
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