According to Mr. Podesta, those in the room when President Clinton met with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia "all concur that Clinton pushed Abdullah hard for cooperation."Maybe Clinton pushed Abdullah hard. Maybe Clinton offered him a cigar. Maybe Clinton doesn't remember clearly who he pushed hard or to whom he offered cigars. Clinton's memory is a bit stained with the stress of the events of those years. A stress that stained. Or was it a dress?
Rich Lowry
November 03, 2003, 7:53 a.m.
Clinton & Khobar
One of the keys to understanding the war over the war on terrorism.
snip
If the Saudis feared U.S. military retaliation against Iran, they clearly didn't know with whom they were dealing. While the investigation into the murder of 19 Americans in an Iranian-backed operation was ongoing, the Clinton administration began a campaign to woo Teheran. It is difficult to warm relations with a regime at the same time as pursuing its connections to terror. So by 1998 the administration appeared prepared to forgive and forget Khobar Towers.
"American officials," writes Madeleine Albright biographer Thomas W. Lippman, "stopped saying in public that they suspected Iran of responsibility for the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Air Force residential compound in Saudi Arabia." The administration softened the State Department warning about travel to Iran, waived sanctions against foreign oil firms doing business there, and removed it from the list of major exporters of illegal drugs.
snip
FBI director Louis Freeh, and those around him, began to suspect that the administration didn't care that much about finding the perpetrators because if connections with Iran were established it would be forced to take, or at least consider, action against Iran. This meant that getting to the bottom of the case would present what the administration hated most: a difficulty, a risk.
"It was hard," says Dale Watson, who was executive assistant director of the FBI for counterterrorism and counterintelligence. "It was hard because of the question: What would you do if there was a state sponsor behind this?" Instead of lapsing into its default mode of attempting to placate a country like Iran, the administration would have been forced at least to talk tough, and perhaps think about doing something about it. "It was an attitude of look the other way," says retired Special Forces Gen. Wayne Downing, who led a Pentagon review of the bombing in 1996.
"Director Freeh was the only one in Washington," says former chief of the international-terrorism division of the FBI Mike Rolince, "pushing for direct access to suspects, pushing for records, pushing for identities of the people, wanting this investigation to succeed. We got a lot of lip service from people who said that they were behind us, but we knew for a fact that when certain Saudi officials came into town and it was the right time to push them for things the Bureau wanted, we know from other people that the issue wasn't even raised. It was crystal clear to some of us that they were hoping that this whole thing would just go away."
In a meeting that was supposed to be devoted to pressuring the Saudis on Khobar, Clinton got weepy when Crown Prince Abdullah expressed support for him in the Lewinsky affair and didn't push the Saudi hard. Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar told Freeh that the White House wanted to avoid confrontation with Iran at all costs, even if it meant ignoring the Khobar Towers attack. For its part, the White House thought Freeh was out of control and trying to make U.S. foreign policy. "We weren't out of control," says Dale Watson, "we were working extremely hard to collect information and evidence that we could use possibly to charge and prosecute people with."
snip
In the Khobar case, the law-enforcement approach itself risked creating pressure for a military strike. The White House was therefore angered when Freeh — the head of its lead agency in the fight against terror, whose job it was to pursue the facts — pursued the facts.
When Freeh told national security adviser Sandy Berger there was evidence to indict several suspects, Berger asked, "Who else knows this?" He then proceeded to question the evidence. A reporter for The New Yorker who later interviewed Freeh about the case writes that the FBI Director thought "Berger . . . was not a national security adviser; he was a public-relations hack, interested in how something would play in the press. After more than two years, Freeh had concluded that the administration did not really want to resolve the Khobar bombing."
snip
http://tinyurl.com/93chl
Wasn't it Hillary who asked for these files??
Monica's loose lips sinks ships.
Freeh was SO solid on MTP ... totally believable .. and Russert couldn't get him to flinch on one point, much as he was throwing the kitchen sink at him. Freeh won it hands down, Jim. I think he really is a straight arrow and squeaky clean, and I loved it. Think the Burglar's getting ready to debate Freeh ........?? NOT ;).
He said that while the letter was supposed to have gone to President Mohammed Khatami, "it was misdelivered."
"It was delivered to the spiritual leader, who went berserk," Mr. Freeh said. "It compromised the Saudis, because it was clear from the letter that the Saudis had told us about the Iranians."
OOUCH!
"Hell hath no fury like a former FBI chief spurned"
I'm donating my copy of Louis Freeh's book to the Clinton Library.
The only difference between Monica and Punk Podesta is that he discarded his Clintoon stained garments.
.
For later
Note to self - Get Freeh's book
Tim Russert took on the role of Defense Attorney for the Clintons. Pathetic.
"Mr. Freeh, appearing on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press""
The amazing thing is that NBC considers this "news". Weren't all those things he's taking about actually Bush's fault? Isn't Freeh just a disgruntled failure?
It's all interesting because it impacts Hillary (even when its about Bill), so it's serious stuff.