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I just listened, over C-SPAN Radio, to a repeat broadcast of Wolf Blitzer's Late Edition, originally broadcast on CNN earlier in the afternoon. Its concluding segment was an explosive debate between Susan Rice, Clinton's assistant secretary of state for African affairs, who was involved in this nonresponse to the Sudanese, and David Rose, the author of the forthcoming Vanity Fair article on this matter. When the transcript is available, people must look at it. It was apparent that Rice was baldly lying throughout the segment. Rose cited numerous witnesses, Sudanese officials, American middlemen like this Ijaz, and the two most recent U.S. ambassadors to the Sudan, Ambassadors Carney and Petterson. Rice only made bald assertions denying Rose's claims, with no supporting testimony or evidence. I have never heard a segment like that where it was so clear that someone was lying throughout. In fact, it was so clear that it's puzzling she consented to appear on the show. When Rose was trying to contact her while doing his article, she made herself unavailable to him until just after his deadline. I suspect the Clintons have ordered her to try to take the heat for this scandal.

You asked about Ijaz. In trying to discredit his testimony, Rice said that he has business interests in the Sudan, in particular in the oil industry.

On Susan Rice (and Sudan) from the Downside Legacy:

9/21/98 NY Times “…In May 1996, at the request of the United States and Saudi Arabia, Sudan expelled bin Laden, who moved to Afghanistan. Sudanese officials also say that they sent 100 of his operatives and their dependents to Afghanistan as well. But U.S. officials were convinced that the Sudanese were insincere. "With the exception of the expulsion of Osama bin Laden, which was not followed by any steps to get rid of his financial network, they have not done anything serious," Ms. Rice said. ….In February 1997, Sudanese President Oman al-Bashir sent President Clinton a personal letter. It offered, among other things, to allow U.S. intelligence, law-enforcement and counterterrorism personnel to enter Sudan and to go anywhere and see anything, to help stamp out terrorism. The United States never replied to that letter; the isolaters derided it as a meaningless "charm offensive" by Sudan, in Ms. Rice's words. A senior Sudanese official made a similar offer directly to the F.B.I. six months ago -- send a counter-terrorism team to Sudan, and we will help in any way we can, it said. The F.B.I. wrote back more than four months later, in June, declining the opportunity….”

MSNBC.com 8/29/99 Michael Moran “…THE PROBE was sparked by two MSNBC.com stories earlier this month that detailed an offer by Sudan to turn over to the FBI two men taken off a plane from Nairobi the day after the twin embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Sudanese, who confirmed the offer in earlier interviews with MSNBC, held the men until Aug. 20, the day when the U.S. ordered a retaliatory Tomahawk missile strike on a Sudanese factory outside Khartoum. Sudan then deported the two men to Pakistan. Officials were unable, or unwilling, to describe their whereabouts today. The closed-door probe by investigators of the House and Senate Intelligence committees differ slightly in their scope. Several sources, including one who has answered questions before the two panels, said Congress wants to know why the Sudanese offer was not taken up, where the two men are today and whether inter-agency friction played any part in the missed opportunity….. Two top counterintelligence officials — Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michael Sheehan and FBI counter-terrorism chief Michael Rolince — were among about a dozen people who have given evidence to investigators over the past two weeks, sources said. Without confirming his appearances, Rolince said Thursday that his working relationship with State Department and other counter-terrorism officials is “rock solid.” “There may have been a couple of people who had disagreements with State,” he said. “But I’ve been here through the whole ordeal, and we all understand each others’ strengths and weaknesses and we’re very much in synch” with the State Department’s efforts. ….”

National Post (Canada) 12/6/99 Steven Edwards “…..Madeleine Albright, the U.S. secretary of state, has refused to appear before a United Nations-mandated independent inquiry probing why the world body failed to prevent the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the National Post has learned. Ms. Albright was the U.S. ambassador to the UN at the time of the genocide and can provide key information about high-level decisions that led the U.S. to call on the UN Security Council to dramatically reduce the number of UN peacekeepers in Rwanda shortly after the killing began in earnest in April. ….. However, she and members of her senior staff, including Susan Rice, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa both at the time of the genocide and now, have declined invitations from Ingvar Carlsson, a former Swedish prime minister who is chairing the inquiry, to meet with him and his two fellow panelists when they visit Washington this week…..”

AP 5/30/00 Casimiro Siona “……The top United States' official for Africa expressed support on Saturday for Angola's military efforts to end a protracted civil war against the UNITA rebels. But Susan Rice, assistant U.S. secretary of state for African affairs, also said negotiations between the government and UNITA appeared unlikely at the moment. …… The fastest way to end the conflict, she said, would be for UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi to abide by a 1994 peace deal, end military actions and disarm. ``But, since he won't do that, the military response is a necessary part of the government's efforts for peace.'' ….. “

11/20/98 Executive Intelligence Review “…Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, is reported to have won her post at the U.S. State Department through strong pressure from Roger Winter, executive director of the U.S. Committee on Refugees, who pushed for her candidacy over the appointment of Howard Wolpe, now U.S. Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region, who was also a contender for the post. Her other known patron is Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who has been a life-long friend of Rice and her family, as Albright is quoted in the Washington Post of March 30. She also comes to the administration with the vetting of the neo-colonial apparatus in the British Commonwealth, which is the source of the policies Rice is carrying out. A Rhodes Scholar, she received her masters and doctorate degrees in International Relations at New College, Oxford University. In 1992, she was the recipient of the first annual award given by the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the British International Studies Association for the "most distinguished dissertation in the United Kingdom in the field of International Relations." Her topic was "The Commonwealth Initiative in Zimbabwe, 1979-80: Implications for International Peacekeeping." In 1990, she had also been awarded the Royal Commonwealth Society's Walter Frewen Lord Prize for "outstanding research in the field of Commonwealth History." Her first job was a management consultant in Toronto, for McKinsey and Company. Her next posting was at the U.S. National Security Council, as director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping in February 1993, and then as Special Assistant to the President and as Senior Director for African Affairs, from March 1995 until May 1997, when she was appointed by President Clinton as Assistant Secretary….”