Nbadan
10-16-2005, 04:24 PM
Concerning Louis Freeh's recent attack on the Clinton Administration for not pushing the Saudis for more cooperation against radical Saudis...
During his tenure as director of the FBI, Louis Freeh presided over a series of blunders and failures that brought the bureau to a low point in its history. From the embarrassment of the Russian mole Robert Hanssen to the bungling of the Wen Ho Lee investigation to the wasting of hundreds of millions of dollars in a failed attempt to build a modern, computerized case management system, the bureau under Freeh's leadership stumbled from one blunder to the next, with little or no accountability. The nadir, as the nation knows too well, was reached in the astonishing string of failures that helped leave America vulnerable to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In the face of this record, Freeh has now published "My FBI," a book distinguished by its shameless buck-passing. Nothing, it seems, was ever Louis Freeh's fault.
Who was to blame for the fact that there weren't enough FBI agents working on counterterrorism? According to Freeh, it was Congress. But in testimony three years ago, Freeh declared that "Congress has shown great foresight in strengthening" counterterrorism efforts, tripling the FBI's counterterrorism budget from $97 million in 1996 to more than $300 million in 1999. Whose fault was it that the FBI remained incapable of basic file management? Congress's, Freeh contends -- it underfunded the bureau's technology program. But as the report of the Sept. 11 commission points out, Congress did not meet FBI requests in the late 1990s because the bureau had squandered so much money already. Equally appalling is Freeh's recent claim on "60 Minutes" that the bureau was too distracted by the many "scandals" in the Clinton White House to attend to the terrorist threat. Of course, none of those politically motivated witch hunts, in which Freeh did the bidding of his congressional patrons on the partisan right, resulted in a conviction. And never mind that Freeh's FBI ought to have been able to protect the American people while pursuing other investigations at the same time....there were countless memos circulating in the bureaucracy and numerous meetings that Freeh refused to attend. As Benjamin and Simon aptly wrote in "The Age of Sacred Terror," the FBI under Freeh was "a surly colossus" that listened to no one, provided intelligence to no one and took direction from no one.
Perhaps no part of Freeh's auto-whitewash is more self-aggrandizing and inaccurate than his rewrite of the history of the investigation into Khobar Towers. Freeh claims the White House did not support his attempts to probe the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia...In fact, on numerous occasions senior Clinton administration officials reiterated requests for full cooperation on Khobar Towers, including access to key witnesses, with interlocutors at the highest levels of the Saudi government. This culminated in a face-to-face demand by President Bill Clinton to Crown Prince Abdullah in Washington in the fall of 1998. Freeh, who was not in that meeting and cites only unnamed sources, claims that Clinton never pushed seriously for cooperation, instead asking Abdullah for a contribution to his planned presidential library.
This account does not pass the straight-face test. Those who were in the room, including several still in government service who cannot speak publicly, all concur that Clinton pushed Abdullah hard for cooperation, telling him that the future of the American-Saudi relationship depended on the kingdom's cooperation. In short order, that cooperation was forthcoming and produced the information that led to the eventual indictments. Freeh alleges that the real reason for the Saudi turnaround was the intervention, at his request, of former president George H.W. Bush. That Bush added his voice to the chorus of administration demands reflects well on our former president, but the argument that the Saudis would deliver on the basis of an appeal from someone who was out of office as opposed to someone whose actions would determine the course of U.S.-Saudi relations is completely implausible
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/14/AR2005101401784_pf.html)
In 2002, Freeh had nothing but praise for the cooperation the Saudi's were giving the FBI on the Kobar Tower investigation...
"Moreover, by making these witnesses directly available to the FBI, the Saudis understood that they would be helping to provide evidence that senior officials of the government of Iran were responsible for the Khobar attack. Despite these extremely sensitive and complex issues, the Saudis put their own interests aside to aid the FBI in the United States.
"Supported by Prince Bandar, Prince Nayef, the police and Crown Prince Abdullah, they decided to grant the FBI request to interview the detainees. Ambassador Wyche Fowler closely worked with me in this endeavor, and we finally succeeded. Teams of FBI agents were then able to have access to these critical detainees, and full debriefings were conducted in Saudi Arabia.
"As a direct result of these and later direct interviews, the Department of Justice was able to return a criminal indictment in June 2001, charging 13 defendants with the murders of our 19 servicemen. The indictment was returned just days before the statute of limitations would have run on some of the criminal charges.
Louis Freeh, Saudi Embassy (http://www.saudiembassy.net/2002News/Press/PressDetail.asp?cYear=2002&cIndex=52)
During his tenure as director of the FBI, Louis Freeh presided over a series of blunders and failures that brought the bureau to a low point in its history. From the embarrassment of the Russian mole Robert Hanssen to the bungling of the Wen Ho Lee investigation to the wasting of hundreds of millions of dollars in a failed attempt to build a modern, computerized case management system, the bureau under Freeh's leadership stumbled from one blunder to the next, with little or no accountability. The nadir, as the nation knows too well, was reached in the astonishing string of failures that helped leave America vulnerable to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In the face of this record, Freeh has now published "My FBI," a book distinguished by its shameless buck-passing. Nothing, it seems, was ever Louis Freeh's fault.
Who was to blame for the fact that there weren't enough FBI agents working on counterterrorism? According to Freeh, it was Congress. But in testimony three years ago, Freeh declared that "Congress has shown great foresight in strengthening" counterterrorism efforts, tripling the FBI's counterterrorism budget from $97 million in 1996 to more than $300 million in 1999. Whose fault was it that the FBI remained incapable of basic file management? Congress's, Freeh contends -- it underfunded the bureau's technology program. But as the report of the Sept. 11 commission points out, Congress did not meet FBI requests in the late 1990s because the bureau had squandered so much money already. Equally appalling is Freeh's recent claim on "60 Minutes" that the bureau was too distracted by the many "scandals" in the Clinton White House to attend to the terrorist threat. Of course, none of those politically motivated witch hunts, in which Freeh did the bidding of his congressional patrons on the partisan right, resulted in a conviction. And never mind that Freeh's FBI ought to have been able to protect the American people while pursuing other investigations at the same time....there were countless memos circulating in the bureaucracy and numerous meetings that Freeh refused to attend. As Benjamin and Simon aptly wrote in "The Age of Sacred Terror," the FBI under Freeh was "a surly colossus" that listened to no one, provided intelligence to no one and took direction from no one.
Perhaps no part of Freeh's auto-whitewash is more self-aggrandizing and inaccurate than his rewrite of the history of the investigation into Khobar Towers. Freeh claims the White House did not support his attempts to probe the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia...In fact, on numerous occasions senior Clinton administration officials reiterated requests for full cooperation on Khobar Towers, including access to key witnesses, with interlocutors at the highest levels of the Saudi government. This culminated in a face-to-face demand by President Bill Clinton to Crown Prince Abdullah in Washington in the fall of 1998. Freeh, who was not in that meeting and cites only unnamed sources, claims that Clinton never pushed seriously for cooperation, instead asking Abdullah for a contribution to his planned presidential library.
This account does not pass the straight-face test. Those who were in the room, including several still in government service who cannot speak publicly, all concur that Clinton pushed Abdullah hard for cooperation, telling him that the future of the American-Saudi relationship depended on the kingdom's cooperation. In short order, that cooperation was forthcoming and produced the information that led to the eventual indictments. Freeh alleges that the real reason for the Saudi turnaround was the intervention, at his request, of former president George H.W. Bush. That Bush added his voice to the chorus of administration demands reflects well on our former president, but the argument that the Saudis would deliver on the basis of an appeal from someone who was out of office as opposed to someone whose actions would determine the course of U.S.-Saudi relations is completely implausible
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/14/AR2005101401784_pf.html)
In 2002, Freeh had nothing but praise for the cooperation the Saudi's were giving the FBI on the Kobar Tower investigation...
"Moreover, by making these witnesses directly available to the FBI, the Saudis understood that they would be helping to provide evidence that senior officials of the government of Iran were responsible for the Khobar attack. Despite these extremely sensitive and complex issues, the Saudis put their own interests aside to aid the FBI in the United States.
"Supported by Prince Bandar, Prince Nayef, the police and Crown Prince Abdullah, they decided to grant the FBI request to interview the detainees. Ambassador Wyche Fowler closely worked with me in this endeavor, and we finally succeeded. Teams of FBI agents were then able to have access to these critical detainees, and full debriefings were conducted in Saudi Arabia.
"As a direct result of these and later direct interviews, the Department of Justice was able to return a criminal indictment in June 2001, charging 13 defendants with the murders of our 19 servicemen. The indictment was returned just days before the statute of limitations would have run on some of the criminal charges.
Louis Freeh, Saudi Embassy (http://www.saudiembassy.net/2002News/Press/PressDetail.asp?cYear=2002&cIndex=52)