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BREAKING NEWS: Just as I posted this–literally- the news has come through that Charles Freeman has asked not to be appointed to the post! In other words, our blogs, attacks and opposition has done its job! If not for people like the folks at The Weekly Standard, who uncovered Freeman’s e mail, and journalists like Eli Lake, Martin Peretz, James Kirchick, Reason magazine’s Michael Moynihan and others, this victory could not have taken place. Kudos to all of them, and let us rejoice! ...

Bias of any kind should be considered a disqualifier for the job of NIC chairman. Bias of the kind Chas Freeman has displayed for many years puts him absolutely beyond the pale. If the House Intelligence Committee does its job in a hastily arranged hearing with Ambassador Freeman this afternoon, it will be abundantly clear that he is unfit for this post and another serious blemish on the judgment of the president who would have him serve in it. Since Freeman left the Foreign Service after a multidecade career involving service in, among other places, Communist China where he was...

Statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman's decision with regret.

Today The head of Intelligence for United States, Dennis Blair, testified before the Senate today. Joe Lieberman asked about the Freeman appointment and Blair spewed some outright lies to the Connecticut Senator. When Freeman's statements are looked at in context we can be sure that either Mr. Blair is lying or he never read the Freeman's emails.

JERUSALEM – Following the 9/11 attacks, President Obama's nominee for a top intelligence post advocated that to effectively combat terrorism, the U.S. government should implement a national identity system, "so we better know who is who." In testimony before the 9/11 commission, Charles "Chas" Freeman, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, also recommended conducting the war on terrorism primary as a law enforcement effort. Freeman is slated to head the U.S. National Intelligence Council, or NIC, a crucial component of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The NIC serves as the center for midterm and long-term strategic...

Jake Tapper appears to be one of the few (only?) mainstream reporters keeping current on the Chas Freeman story. You would think it would be hard to ignore the growing tidal wave of protest and controversy. The latest is a letter signed by the Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee taking issue with the appointment. And one wonders how the civil libertarians on the left who are apologizing for Freeman and smearing his critics will respond to this from Huffington Post: One new development, revealed here for the first time, which is likely to further damage Freeman’s already battered...

National Security: It seems the foreign conflicts of interest to the man President Obama wants to oversee his eyes-only intelligence are worse than first reported. It's time for full disclosure.We recently argued ("The Wrong Man For The Job") that National Intelligence Council appointee Chas Freeman's cozy ties with China and Saudi Arabia should disqualify him from heading the group that prepares the U.S. intelligence community's most sensitive reports. Freeman will have access to America's closest guarded secrets and draft the consensus view of all 16 intelligence agencies regarding foreign threats to U.S. security. Now we learn that, in addition to...

UH-OH Based on what Chas Freeman's Son Said this weekend, there are members of the Senate who are cruising for a bruising. Seven US Senators sent a letter to Dennis Blair the Director of National Intelligence, objecting to his pick of former ambassador Chas Freeman as Chairman of the NIC. The letter focuses on Freeman's lack of experience as well as his controversial remarks regarding Chinese protesters and Israel to exclude him from the position:

I have one example of media bias, which will demonstrate that the biased, dishonest and fraudulent mainstream media has the potential to destroy America and is in the process of doing exactly that. That is so because it presents such a distorted picture of the world to most Americans who rely on it for news and information, that it will lead to policies and laws, which are likely to bring the country down. Put the case that a president of the United States appoints an official to a top intelligence and foreign policy post who has a long history of...

Mr Freeman's Son Charles Freeman posted a guest editorial on the Washington Note. Freeman is former Assistant US Trade Representative for China and now holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In his note. the younger Freeman makes a defense of his dad, talking about how they sometimes disagree with each other politically and that this opposition to his dad is to the mysterious pro-Israel Cabal that opposes anyone who has views that may be deemed anti-Israel.He finishes off his post with My Dad and I are going to continue to...

Talk about a failure in vetting! Dennis Blair’s choice to head the National Intelligence Council and to create the critical NIEs that guide our security policies looks worse by the day. Martin Kramer gives his analysis of Freeman and finds a Saudi apologist — and a card-carrying member of the Blame America crowd: How important has resentment of Israel been to Al Qaeda’s terrorism? Here is one side of the argument, by an American who knows Saudi Arabia well: The heart of the poison is the Israel-Palestinian conundrum. When I was in Saudi Arabia, I was told by Saudi friends...

Now "Israel-lobby" conspiracy theorists like MJ Rosenberg will claim that James "F**K the Jews" Baker was just a shill for the for the Israel lobby, but this find by Mark Hemmingway of NRO is priceless. He sorted through the former Secretary of State's Book, and only twice was Freeman's name mentioned, each time he felt that Chas Freeman was "in the pocket" of the Saudi Government....There is another development in "as the Freeman churns" a group of 87 Chinese dissidents sent a letter to President Obama requesting that he reconsider the appointment of Freeman....

The Obama administration's choice for the usually obscure, though important, post as chairman of the National Intelligence Board (NIC) has become their most controversial appointment to date. The reason is not what Charles Freeman Jr. did during his successful diplomatic career but his employment afterward. Freeman's two key post-government activities involved being, to a considerable degree, a de facto employee of Saudi Arabia and an apparent panderer to its demands. In exchange, he received lavish support for the research center he headed and lucrative contracts for the consulting firm that he founded to guide international companies into finding royal family-connected...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's appointment as head of a U.S. intelligence council has been identified by the Center for Security Policy as a member of the 'Iran lobby'. Also, government sources said Charles Freeman, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and appointed to head the National Intelligence Council, has expressed anti-Semitic views in government meetings. At one meeting, the sources said, Freeman turned to Jewish staffers of Congress and questioned their loyalty to the United States. A report by the Center for Security Policy identified Freeman as a member of the so-called Iran lobby, which has been pressing...

Another Congressman Is urging President Obama to reconsider the appointment of Chas Freeman as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council. As first reported by the JTA Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has sent the President a letter objecting to the appointment (see text below). Wolf complains about Freeman's support of Chinese actions against Tibetan democracy protests (he describes them as a "race riot" his work for the Chinese state-owned oil company CNOOC which skirts the US Boycott of Iran and his close financial ties to the Saudi regime. As seen in the picture below, at the end of his letter he hand...

As a quintessential member of the Dem foreign-policy establishment, you might expect Madeleine Albright to endorse Pres. Obama’s pick of Chas Freeman as a matter of course. But appearing on Morning Joe today, the former Secretary of State twice pointedly declined to endorse the president’s choice to head the National Intelligence Council. Adding insult to injury, Albright downplayed the extent to which she had worked with Freeman, and offered a laughably lukewarm description of his skills . . . I’d encourage those seeking more background on Freeman, this Saudi lapdog and apologist for the Tiananmen Square massacre, to read Rich...

The appointment of Ambassador Charles Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council has stirred another bipartisan controversy over President Barack Obama’s inner circle of advisers. Mr. Freeman, who was a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, headed the Saudi-funded Middle East Policy Council think tank as well as Projects International, a consulting firm that represents U.S. defense contractors doing business with the kingdom. In the past, he has made some controversial statements involving American foreign policy. He has accused Israel of being at fault for the failure of Middle East peace talks. He also said that China acted too...

The pressure keeps mounting on the President's new National Intelligence Council Chairman, Chas Freeman. Washington Times reporter Eli Lake got a copy of the letter from Edward Maguire, inspector general of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), to twelve congressman saying said he would look into Mr. Freeman's "past and current relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" and "report back to Congress on any potential conflicts of interest." (see letter below)....Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Steve Israel, teamed up for a letter Thursday asking the Inspector general to broaden the scope of the investigation to include...

An independent inspector general will look into the foreign financial ties of Chas W. Freeman Jr., the Obama administration's pick to serve as chairman of the group that prepares the U.S. intelligence community's most sensitive assessments, according to three congressional aides. The director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, last Thursday named Mr. Freeman, a veteran former diplomat, to the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council, known inside the government as the NIC. In that job, Mr. Freeman will have access to some of America's most closely guarded secrets and be charged with overseeing the drafting of the consensus view...

Washington Post Reporter Eli Lake is Reporting that An independent inspector general will look into the foreign financial ties of Chas W. Freeman Jr., the Obama administration's pick to serve as chairman of the group that prepares the U.S. intelligence community's most sensitive assessments. According to Lake three different congressional aides have confirmed that Office of the Director of National Intelligence's inspector general, Edward McGuire will look into Mr. Freeman's potential conflicts of interest. Lindsay Hamilton, a spokeswoman for Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat from New York who sits on the House Appropriations Committee's select intelligence oversight panel that funds...