Posted on 10/10/2005 5:21:14 PM PDT by MangoCrazy
Lanny Davis Confirms Freeh on FOX!
Hillary must have photographs and afidavits on Lanny for him to still be shilling for BJ. Why does he continue to go on these shows and defend the indefensible?
Yes, I agree that the Saudis disputed it in the New Yorker article. Of course, I don't believe the other Clinton sycophants. My only point was that Davis did defend Slick Willie like the flak that he is.
Is it against the law for Clinton to solicit funds for his library while he's in office?
My FBI : Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror (Hardcover)
by Louis J. Freeh
Amazon.com Sales Rank:
Today: #4 in Books
He is their friend...at least he thinks he is.
My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror
Louis J. Freeh
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 3
The Case for Hillary Clinton
Susan R. Estrich
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 480,410
Rich Lowry
November 03, 2003, 7:53 a.m.
Clinton & Khobar
snip
A fraught three-way tug-of-war began over the investigation into the bombing between the Saudis, who didn't want the U.S. to get at the truth in the case; the FBI, which was determined to ascertain the facts and suspicious of the motives of the White House; and the White House, which loathed its FBI director and was lukewarm about pursuing the case.
The pattern of Saudi non-cooperation had been set after the Riyadh bombing, when the Saudis denied FBI agents access to four suspects, and swiftly beheaded them to lend finality to that lack of access.
snip
The Saudis may have refused cooperation not just because — as is often argued — they feared that the United States would lash out and bomb Iran in retaliation, but because they wanted to obscure the role of prominent Saudis in the emerging terrorist network.
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.
Iran was determinedly, and predictably, unmoved, because anti-Americanism was close to the core of the regime. The administration then deployed its big gun: a soupy, let's-all-get-along near-apology to the Iranians from the president of the United States, which had been a longtime demand of the Teheran terror regime. President Clinton's statement in April 1999, while the FBI was still trying to unravel the Iranian terror plot, ranks among the most shameful things he ever said in office.
snip
The outreach to Iran was exactly at variance with Clinton's rhetoric immediately after the Khobar attack. "The cowards who committed this murderous act," Clinton said upon learning of the bombing, "must not go unpunished. Let me say again: We will pursue this. America takes care of our own." Clinton made his semi-apology to Iran before officially requesting its cooperation in the Khobar case, which he did only in October 1999 and never backed up with international pressure.
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
"What the administration did was latch onto law enforcement as a way of showing that they were doing something," says former CIA director Jim Woolsey. "
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."
The price of not getting to the bottom of the matter — although the Saudis opened up somewhat in response to Freeh's proddings and allowed the questioning of suspects — wasn't just shrugging off the murderer of 19 Americans. It was failing to understand fully the changing nature of the terror threat. "Khobar provided the keys that unlocked the new terror world," says one terror expert. "Everything you needed to know about the new terror network, the cooperation between all the different sects and factions, the rise of Wahhabi radicalism in Saudi Arabia, the changing dynamic of the Middle East — it all was present in that case."
snip
An attack against American servicemen abroad was not merely a crime. It was an act of war. As Louis Freeh later put it, "Khobar represented a national security threat far beyond capability or authority of the FBI or Department of Justice to address. Neither the FBI Director nor the Attorney General could or should decide America's response to such a grave threat."
The Khobar bombing should have prompted severe consequences for both Saudi Arabia, for its financial support for the growing terror network, and Iran, for its direct involvement in the attack. But the Clinton administration couldn't bring itself to change the basis of its relationship with Saudi Arabia, or to punish Iran, which actually got softer treatment after Khobar.
http://tinyurl.com/aofzr
The whole rogue's gallery expects to be part of Hillary's administration in a few years. What fools. Even if (heaven forbid) Hillary were to be elected, she would bring in her own pack of thieves and liars, and not hang onto Bill's (a few of them swing both ways, though, for example Donna Shalala)...
I have lived a while now and am honestly scared to see what is happening in our country and our world. As a former agnostic I feel we may be losing or will loose Gods gift of peace and protection. And no Helen Keller, I see the storm clouds of War on the horizon.
this quote from you
"I look at O'Reilly like the loudmouth uncle that shows up at family dinners. He is always the big expert on everything, but really doesn't know much. Occasionally he is right, but it's simply an accident."
reminds me of EVERY LIBERAL that I know.... (replace (O'Reilly) with _______ (fill in the blank liberal that you know)) thanks for putting it so finely.
Thanks!
If anyone watches #41 with Greta could they start a thread as to what he is saying. I had dish disconnected. I'm just curious if he tries to cover for BJC.
Yes!
******
May 20, 2003
Louie Freeh:
"The only direction from the Clinton administration regarding Iran was to order the FBI to stop photographing and fingerprinting official Iranian delegations entering the U.S. because it was adversely impacting our "relationship" with Tehran."
AT WAR
Remember Khobar Towers
Nineteen American heroes still await American justice.
BY LOUIS J. FREEH
Tuesday, May 20, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
Responding to last week's terrorist attacks in Riyadh, President Bush declared that "the United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice." This is a president who is serious about fighting and winning the war on terrorism. The liberation of Iraq and the continued effort to bring al Qaeda to justice are all the proof anyone should need.
On May 1, our commander in chief stood on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln--where he rightly should stand--and reiterated the Bush doctrine: "Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice." As if in response, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the leader of Iran's powerful Guardian Council, had this to say in a sermon the next day: "The Iraqi people have reached the conclusion that they have no option but to launch an uprising and resort to martyrdom operations to expel the United States from Iraq."
snip
On June 25, 1996, Iran again attacked America at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, exploding a huge truck bomb that devastated Khobar Towers and murdered 19 U.S. airmen as they rested in their dormitory. These young heroes spent every day risking their lives enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq; that is, protecting Iraqi Shiites from their own murderous tyrant. When I visited this horrific scene soon after the attack, I watched dozens of dedicated FBI agents combing through the wreckage in 120-degree heat, reverently handling the human remains of our brave young men. More than 400 of our Air Force men and women were wounded in this well-planned attack, and I was humbled by their courage and spirit. I later met with the families of our lost Khobar heroes and promised that we would do whatever was necessary to bring these terrorists to American justice. The courage and dignity these wonderful families have consistently exemplified has been one of the most powerful experiences of my 26 years of public service.
The FBI's investigation of the Khobar attack was extraordinarily persistent, indeed relentless. Our fallen heroes and their families deserve nothing less. Working in close cooperation with the White House, State Department, CIA and Department of Defense, I made a series of trips to Saudi Arabia beginning in 1996. FBI agents opened an office in Riyadh and aligned themselves closely with the Mabaheth, the kingdom's antiterrorist police. Over the course of our investigation the evidence became clear that while the attack was staged by Saudi Hezbollah members, the entire operation was planned, funded and coordinated by Iran's security services, the IRGC and MOIS, acting on orders from the highest levels of the regime in Tehran.
In order to return an indictment and bring these terrorists to American justice, it became essential that FBI agents be permitted to interview several of the participating Hezbollah terrorists who were detained in Saudi Arabia. The purpose of the interviews was to confirm--with usable, co-conspirator testimonial evidence--the Iranian complicity that Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan and the Mabaheth had already relayed to us. (For the record, the FBI's investigation only succeeded because of the real cooperation provided by Prince Bandar and our colleagues in the Mabaheth.) FBI agents had never before been permitted to interview firsthand Saudis detained in the kingdom.
Unfortunately, the White House was unable or unwilling to help the FBI gain access to these critical witnesses. The only direction from the Clinton administration regarding Iran was to order the FBI to stop photographing and fingerprinting official Iranian delegations entering the U.S. because it was adversely impacting our "relationship" with Tehran. We had argued that the MOIS was using these groups to infiltrate its agents into the U.S.
After months of inaction, I finally turned to the former President Bush, who immediately interceded with Crown Prince Abdullah on the FBI's behalf. Mr. Bush personally asked the Saudis to let the FBI do one-on-one interviews of the detained Khobar bombers. The Saudis immediately acceded. After Mr. Bush's Saturday meeting with the Crown Prince in Washington, Ambassador Wyche Fowler, Dale Watson, the FBI's excellent counterterrorism chief, and I were summoned to a Monday meeting where the crown prince directed that the FBI be given direct access to the Saudi detainees. This was the investigative breakthrough for which we had been waiting for several years.
Mr. Bush typically disclaimed any credit for his critical intervention but he earned the gratitude of many FBI agents and the Khobar families. I quickly dispatched the FBI case agents back to Saudi Arabia, where they interviewed, one-on-one, six of the Hezbollah members who actually carried out the attack. All of them directly implicated the IRGC, MOIS and senior Iranian government officials in the planning and execution of this attack. Armed with this evidence, the FBI recommended a criminal indictment that would identify Iran as the sponsor of the Khobar bombing. Finding a problem for every solution, the Clinton administration refused to support a prosecution.
The prosecution and criminal indictment for these murders had to wait for a new administration. In February 2001, working with exactly the same evidence but with a talented new prosecutor, James B. Comey Jr. (now U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York), Attorney General John Ashcroft's personal intervention, and White House support, the case was presented to a grand jury. On June 21, 2001, only four days before some of the terrorist charges would have become barred by the five-year statute of limitations, the grand jury indicted 13 Hezbollah terrorists for the Khobar attack and identified Iran as the sponsor.
More here...
http://tinyurl.com/75rvo
He is just throwing a tantrum because Freeh turned down an invitation to be on O'Reillys show..
And, O'Reilly will tell you that it is stupid to not go on O'Reilly's show because it is the #1 show on cable!!!
He HATES being turned down for an appearance on his show!!!
How could he deny it? The review article by the NYT and other snoozepapers stated that the Saudis substantially contributed to Willy's fun house.
I think I heard that. DFU. Medved?...couple years back?
OMG .. Tab Hunter .. one of my teenage crushes .. is on Larry King .. first interview about life out of the closet (barf).. but he sure looks fine.
I wondered where I could find you...and here you are.
I was listening to Hannity's radio show this afternoon, and I about choked on my iced tea when Hannity came out and said bluntly, "I have to warn ya'll don't waste your money on Louis Freeh's book", and then said that he can't tell us why he said that...
What is up with that? If he "can't" tell us why NOT to buy the book, then why did he even mention it?
Doug...your mission, should you decide to accept it is...to call Hannity's show tomorrow and ask him why it would be a waste of $$$$ and if he says he can't tell....then ask him why not!!!
PLease, please....you ALWAYS get through on these shows, and I don't get Hannity until later in the afternoon than it is recorded.
"I look at O'Reilly like the loudmouth uncle that shows up at family dinners. He is always the big expert on everything, but really doesn't know much. Occasionally he is right, but it's simply an accident."
Bill is just HOT air!!
I think it might have been Levin or David Limbaugh subbing for a New York host on a local show.
Yesterday, I sat down and seriously tried to figure who or what kind of person Hillary would be placing in her various cabinet positions and nominations. Knowing her to be the vicious side of the Clinton coupling, it made my blood run cold. Say it audibly, PRESIDENT HILLARY RHODAM CLINTON. Just say it and consider it. Lord, God,...is this where we are heading? Can you imagine 8 years of her?
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