Posted on 05/17/2002 12:50:42 PM PDT by Elkiejg
The man who negotiated a deal for Osama bin Laden's extradition to the United States six years ago is daring Senate Democrats to call him as a witness in the upcoming probe into the government's 9-11 intelligence failures, saying he can blow the lid off the Clinton administration's cover-up of the episode.
Mansoor Ijaz, a major Clinton financial supporter who hammered out the 1996 bin Laden agreement with the government of Sudan only to have the White House turn the offer down, issued the challenge Thursday during an interview with nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity.
"I'm saying this point blank," Ijaz announced in impassioned tones. "Clinton, Berger, Albright, Susan Rice - any of them that want to come and take us on. I've got the paperwork to back up what I've said and they know it. And they know they can't run and hide."
Ijaz complained that since Sept. 11, he has yet to be called by either the House or Senate intelligence committees to give sworn testimony.
"[Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman] Bob Graham is a friend of mine and he knows what I've got in my files. And they know where to find me if they really want to find out the truth about what was possible at that time."
Ijaz charged that Senate Democrats don't want to call him, in order to protect the previous administration.
"I'm absolutely convinced," he told Hannity, "that the Democrats are desperately trying to find a way to deflect the attention from the complicity of the Clinton administration in letting this terrorism problem get so far out of hand."
The former Clinton negotiator described the missed opportunity to get bin Laden and fingered former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and former Attorney General Janet Reno as having key roles in the deadly foul-up.
"By May of 1996 the Sudanese had decided to get rid of bin Laden because he was becoming a problem there as well. They called the Clinton administration one last time and said, 'If you don't want him to go to Saudi Arabia, we're prepared to hand him over to you guys directly.'"
"And the Clinton administration's response to that was 'We don't have enough legal evidence against him,'" Ijaz explained.
Besides Berger and Reno, "Clearly the president had to have had a hand in making that decision," he added. "There's no question in my mind that he was involved in those decisions as well. There's no question about that at all."
The former Clinton negotiator suggested that Congress depose other witnesses who could corroborate and expand upon his account.
"The American people should know that I have even persuaded a senior Sudanese intelligence official, who was later the intelligence chief, that if it became necessary he would come to the United States and testify in closed hearings about precisely what they were prepared to do," he said. "And he would bring the data with him."
Another witness suggested by Ijaz: former Clinton administration ambassador to the Sudan, Tim Carney.
"Frankly, [Carney] can take the American people a couple of steps further in terms of taking them inside the deliberations that went on and telling people precisely how the politicizing of the intelligence took place at that time."
Ijaz also charged that Clinton officials deliberately went out of their way to stifle FBI anti-terrorism probes.
"The FBI, in 1996 and 1997, had their efforts to look at terrorism data and deal with the bin Laden issue overruled every single time by the State Department, by Susan Rice and her cronies, who were hell-bent on destroying the Sudan," he said.
The Bush administration takes a different approach entirely, according to Ijaz.
"I can tell you personally that I have dealt with the Bush administration's national security team." he told Hannity. "These are people who immediately react to information that is brought to their attention that is necessary and important for people to know. ... There is no comparison to the Clinton administration."
Shortly after the tragic events of September 11, Mr. Pearl called me from Bombay and said he had been made aware that I had some contacts with some of the either former associates of Osama bin Laden or some of the more radical Islamic groups in Pakistan, which I did from other things that I had done in that region. And he wanted to know whether or not I would be willing to introduce him to them. And I spent about an hour with him in that first telephone call essentially trying to understand what story he wanted to pursue to make sure I wasn't unnecessarily putting him in harm's way, because these are not people who understand mistakes very well. And I was absolutely convinced of his integrity, his honesty, his approach, and I made those contacts available to him. And one of those contacts was the one who sent me an e-mail message last Friday morning, very early in the morning, essentially saying that Daniel was missing for the last 48 hours, was I aware of it, and what needed to be done. And that's when I started to proceed to get involved in this process.
It is going to be an interesting summer.
They all have something on each other, I'm convinced.
And I'm also convinced the 'toons are blackmailing all of them. (Remember those 900 missing FBI files a while back?)
Hmmmm. I dunno. Jot that one down for her next, uh, her first, not pre-scripted press conference, when ever (if ever) that will be.
But is he really the cynic, or are you? I vote for you.
You're right of course, but I think it is time Dubya took off his white gloves and went after the perfumed princes Clinton, Berger, Albright, Susan Rice and all those Demagogue Party princelings in Congress.
That sounds like an admission to me. If they really could beat this guy on the facts, you know they would be shovelling them to sympathetic media outlets. Instead they'll do what they always do when facts are not on their side - character assasination by innuendo.
B.S. I have heard him discuss his role in the Pearl affair several times, with never the slightest indication of reticence. What is it with you and this utterly gratuitous claim that because Ijaz hooked Pearl up with a contact that he is thereby implicated in the murder? Do you even have a shred of evidence behind this claim?
I'm with you. Either he'll turn up missing/dead, or the GOP won't call him. The woman from the DMV that burned in her car comes to mind for some reason.
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