Posted on 09/24/2003 11:35:47 AM PDT by IsraelBeach
Well, that clears it up.
Why did he resign? What kind of person has a "business conflict" with the slaughter of his fellow citizens?
Correct, it was only funded by the Saudis and executed by Saudis.
Not pick someone on the Saudi payroll?
And which nations would this be? Cambodia, perhaps? I bet Indonesia is a big fan.
SECRET/SENSITIVE
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
Participants:
The Secretary [Henry Kissinger]
Deputy Secretary [Robert] Ingersoll
Under Secretary [for Political Affairs Joseph] Sisco
Under Secretary [Carlyle] Maw
Deputy Under Secretary [Lawrence] Eagleburger
Assistant Secretary [Philip] Habib
Monroe Leigh, Legal Advisor
Jerry Bremer, Notetaker
Date: December 18, 1975
Subject: Department Policy
The Secretary [Kissinger]: I want to raise a little bit of hell about the Department's conduct in my absence. Until last week I thought we had a disciplined group; now we've gone to pieces completely. Take this cable on Timor. You know my attitude and anyone who knows my position as you do must know that I would not have approved it. The only consequence is to put yourself on record. It is a disgrace to treat the Secretary of State this way....
What possible explanation is there for it? I had told you to stop it quietly. What is your place doing, Phil, to let this happen? It is incomprehensible....
Habib: Our assessment was that if it was going to be trouble, it would come up before your return. And I was told they decided it was desirable to go ahead with the cable.
The Secretary: Nonsense. I said do it for a few weeks and then open up again.
Habib: The cable will not leak.
The Secretary: Yes it will and it will go to Congress too and then we will have hearings on it.
Habib: I was away. I was told by cable that it had come up.
The Secretary: That means that there are two cables! And that means twenty guys have seen it.
Habib: No, I got it back channel--it was just one paragraph double talk and cryptic so I knew what it was talking about. I was told that Leigh thought that there was a legal requirement to do it.
Leigh: No, I said it could be done administratively. It was not in our interest to do it on legal grounds.
Sisco: We were told that you had decided we had to stop.
The Secretary: Just a minute, just a minute. You all know my view on this.... No one has complained that it was aggression.
Leigh: The Indonesians were violating an agreement with us.
The Secretary: The Israelis when they go into Lebanon--when was the last time we protested that?
Leigh: That's a different situation.
Maw: It is self-defense. The Secretary: And we can't construe a Communist government in the middle of Indonesia as self-defense?
Leigh: Well ...
The Secretary: Then you're saying that arms can't be used for defense?
Habib: No, they can be used for the defense of Indonesia. The Secretary: Now take a look at this basic theme that is coming out on Angola. These SOBs are leaking all of this stuff to [New York Times reporter] Les Gelb.
Sisco: I can tell you who.
The Secretary: Who?
Sisco: [National Security Council member William] Hyland spoke to him.
The Secretary: Wait a minute--Hyland said ...
Sisco: He said he briefed Gelb.
The Secretary: I want these people to know that our concern in Angola is not the economic wealth or a naval base. It has to do with the USSR operating 8,000 miles from home when all the surrounding states are asking for our help. This will affect the Europeans, the Soviets, and China.
On the Timor thing, that will leak in three months, and it will come out that Kissinger overruled his pristine bureaucrats and violated the law. [Italics added.] How many people in L [the legal adviser's office] know about this?
Leigh: Three.
Habib: There are at least two in my office.
The Secretary: Plus everybody in the meeting so you're talking about not less than 15 or 20.
You have a responsibility to recognize that we are living in a revolutionary situation. Everything on paper will be used against me.
Habib: We do that and take account of that all the time....
The Secretary: Every day some SOB in the Department is carrying on about Angola but no one is defending Angola. Find me one quote in the Gelb article defending our policy in Angola.
Habib: I think the leaks and dissent are the burden you have to bear....
The Secretary: ... This is not minor league stuff. We are going to lose big. The President says to the Chinese that we're going to stand firm in Angola and two weeks later we get out. I go to a NATO meeting and meanwhile the Department leaks that we're worried about a naval base and says it's an exaggeration or aberration of Kissinger's. I don't care about the oil or the base but I do care about the African reaction when they see the Soviets pull it off and we don't do anything.... The Chinese will say we're a country that was run out of Indochina for 50,000 men and is now being run out of Angola for less than $50 million....
The Secretary: It cannot be that our agreement with Indonesia says that the arms are for internal purposes only. I think you will find that it says that they are legitimately used for self-defense.
There are two problems. The merits of the case which you had a duty to raise with me. The second is how to put these to me. But to put it in. to a cable 30 hours before I return, knowing how cables are handled in this building, guarantees that it will be a national disaster and that transcends whatever [Deputy Legal Adviser George] Aldrich has in his feverish mind.
I took care of it with the administrative thing by ordering Carlyle [Maw] not to make any new sales.
How will the situation get better in six weeks?
Habib: They may get it cleaned up by then.
The Secretary: The Department is falling apart and has reached the point where it disobeys clear-cut orders.
Habib: We sent the cable because we thought it was needed and we thought it needed your attention. This was ten days ago.
The Secretary: Nonsense. When did I get the cable, Jerry?
Bremer: Not before the weekend. I think perhaps on Sunday.
The Secretary: You had to know what my view on this was. No one who has worked with me in the last two years could not know what my view would be on Timor.
Habib: Well, let us look at it--talk to Leigh. There are still some legal requirements. I can't understand why it went out if it was not legally required.
The Secretary: Am I wrong in assuming that the Indonesians will go up in smoke if they hear about this?
Habib: Well, it's better than a cutoff. It could be done at a low level.
The Secretary: We have four weeks before Congress comes back. That's plenty of time.
Leigh: The way to handle the administrative cutoff would be that we are studying the situation.
The Secretary: And 36 hours was going to be a major problem?
Leigh: We had a meeting in Sisco's office and decided to send the message.
The Secretary: I know what the law is but how can it be in the U.S. national interest for us to give up on Angola and kick the Indonesians in the teeth? Once it is on paper, there will be a lot of FSO-6's who can make themselves feel good who can write for the Open Forum Panel on the thing even though I will turn out to be right in the end.
Habib: The second problem on leaking of cables is different.
The Secretary: No it's an empirical fact.
Eagleburger: Phil, it's a fact. You can't say that any NODIS ["No Distribution": the most restricted level of classification] cable will leak but you can't count on three to six months later someone asking for it in Congress. If it's part of the written record, it will be dragged out eventually.
The Secretary: You have an obligation to the national interest. I don't care if we sell equipment to Indonesia or not. I get nothing from it. I get no rakeoff. But you have an obligation to figure out how to serve your country. The Foreign Service is not to serve itself. The Service stands for service to the United States and not service to the Foreign Service.
Habib: I understand that that's what this cable would do.
The Secretary: The minute you put this into the system you cannot resolve it without a finding.
Leigh: There's only one question. What do we say to Congress if we're asked?
The Secretary: We cut it off while we are studying it. We intend to start again in January.(3)
I'm still waiting for results. How many times has the investigation's budget been delayed or otherwise obstructed now?
The world does not revolve around Bush. It is actually possible to consider a geopolitical event without warping one's views to create a fantasyland whose primary consideration is a positive portrayal of Bush.
Possibly but what does this have to do with the fact the Saudis are evil despicable tyrants who purchase WMDS for unstable nations, kidnap and rape American citizens, and enslave their own population?
Mohammed told his interrogators the hijacking teams were originally made up of members from different countries where al-Qaida had recruited, but that in the final stages bin Laden chose instead to use a large group of young Saudi men to populate the hijacking teams.As the plot came closer to fruition, Mohammed learned "there was a large group of Saudi operatives that would be available to participate as the muscle in the plot to hijack planes in the United States," one report says Mohammed told his captors.
Saudi Arabia was bin Laden's home, though it revoked his citizenship in the 1990s, and he reviled its alliance with the United States during the Gulf War and beyond. Saudis have suggested for months that bin Laden has been trying to drive a wedge between the United States and their kingdom, hoping to fracture the alliance.
As Americans interested in only the price we pay at the pump, we are all to blame for this mess and I am personally pleased that we have an oil man in the White House that is going to try to straighten out this mess. If his buddies in the oil industry benefit in the process, so be it. They deserve it for having the guts to do what needs to be done instead of sitting on their @$$e$ and just talking about it.
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