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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (14842)	10/12/2005 2:39:57 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Louis Freeh responds to allegation that he was out of the loop as to whether Clinton pushed the Saudi's for CIA access to prisoners in the Khobar bombings: Freeh: "Sure I've heard the response. Well let me say this. He didn't push the Saudis and the proof in the pudding is that we asked the administration, the Clinton administration, my administration for three-and-a-half years to intercede with the Saudis. Nothing happened. We asked President Bush 41 to help us. He met with the Crown Prince on a Saturday afternoon in McLean, Virginia. Monday morning, 48 hours later, the Crown Prince invited myself, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and the head of my criminal, the head of my counterterrorism division and gave us access to the prisoners. So that fact is an unassailable fact." http://newsbusters.org/node/2118

To: Sully- who wrote (14842)	10/12/2005 7:55:04 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Louis Freeh says he ‘distrusted’ Bill Clinton In ‘My FBI,’ the agency’s former director attacks the former president for getting bogged down in scandal and for weak stance on terror Today show Updated: 1:14 p.m. ET Oct. 11, 2005 Former FBI director Louis Freeh has written a book in which he has some very tough criticism for his former boss, President Bill Clinton. NBC News Chief White House Correspondent David Gregory reports. For the cameras, Bill Clinton and his FBI director choice Louis Freeh stood shoulder to shoulder when the president nominated Freeh. But in private this was one of the worst relationships in Washington. Now, in his new book, "My FBI," Louis Freeh lets loose — attacking the former president for getting bogged down in scandal. Freeh spoke on the CBS News magazine “60 Minutes.” "My role and my obligation was to conduct criminal investigations. [Bill Clinton], unfortunately for the country and unfortunately for him, happened to be the subject of that investigation.” In the book, Freeh writes: "Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out. Freeh also writes: "The FBI secretly met with Mr. Clinton during a White House dinner to draw blood for a DNA test on the semen- stained dress worn by Monica Lewinsky." In fact, Freeh says, he so distrusted Clinton that he deliberately stayed on as director until a new president came to office. More than the scandals, however, Freeh says President Clinton failed to follow through on his promise to pursue the killers behind the 1996 Khobar towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans. Freeh says, "That's the order that I got, [but he] then did nothing to assist and facilitate that investigation, in fact [he] undermined it." Freeh charges that, rather than pressure Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah for access to the bombing suspects, Mr. Clinton asked the kingdom for a contribution to his presidential library. A spokesman for the former president said that charge is untrue. “[Freeh] spent a lot of his time chasing political rumors and political scandals when there were real issues, like the FBI computers system, the crime lab, and the real terrorist threat," says Joe Lockhart, who served as White House press secretary during the Clinton administration. The book, say Clinton defenders, is Freeh's own failed attempt to cover up his failed leadership at the FBI. © 2005 MSNBC Interactive msnbc.msn.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14842)	10/14/2005 2:57:25 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

...six weeks after the bombing, Freeh reports that evidence was gathered that "showed almost beyond a doubt that the Khobar Tower attacks had been sanctioned, funded and directed by senior officials of the government of Iran." The evidence was taken to Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger, and upon reviewing it asked Freeh, "Who knows about this?" Instead of acting upon what had been learned, Freeh says, Berger devised a plan to prevent the evidence from leaking out.... http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=21792202

To: Sully- who wrote (14842)	10/17/2005 3:03:35 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

CLINTON AND THE SAUDIS NEW YORK POST Editorial October 17, 2005 Former FBI Director Louis Freeh is leveling some devastating charges against his one-time boss, Bill Clinton: He claims the ex-president deliberately dropped the ball on pressing the Saudis to cooperate with the agency's probe of the 1996 Khobar Tower bombing in Riyadh, which killed 19 American soldiers. Freeh makes these charges in a new book, which he was busy promoting in a recent "60 Minutes" interview with Mike Wallace. And though it's tempting to claim, as Clinton's circle already is, that this is just a ploy to sell books, the utter failure to mete out justice in the bombing suggests there's some merit to the charges. Khobar, recall, was the base of U.S. operations in Saudi Arabia. After the bombing, Freeh wanted his agents involved in the probe, which he says pointed to Iran as the mastermind of the terrorist attack. To that end, he asked the president to pressure the Saudis into cooperating. Specifically, he wanted FBI access to four suspects the Saudis had arrested. But Riyadh's ambassador in Washington had told Freeh that wouldn't happen unless Clinton personally called then-Crown Prince Abdullah and asked for it. Instead, says Freeh, "Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudis' reluctance to cooperate. And then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library." In fact, Freeh says his agents only got access to the suspects when an ex-president — the first George Bush — "interceded with the Saudis, spoke to Abdullah, asked him for assistance and it happened just like that." Freeh says Clinton's refusal stemmed from a reluctance to antagonize either Saudi Arabia or Iran; the latter had just elected a president widely seen as a moderate, and the White House hoped for a warming of relations. Under pressure from Team Clinton, "60 Minutes" agreed to read a statement from convicted criminal Sandy Berger, Clinton's national security adviser, insisting that Freeh's account is flat-out wrong. An aide also noted ominously that, since leaving office, Freeh's political donations have all gone to Republicans. Maybe so, but the charge seems to have some legs. And they're not of recent vintage, either. Clinton seems to have gotten his donation — albeit several years later. It's also a fact that he's remained close to the House of Saud: In 2002, he was paid $750,000 for a speaking tour there. The Saudis also flew the ex-president and an entourage of 40 guests to the kingdom for a 2003 visit, followed by a trip to the World Economic Forum. And Clinton pointedly praised the Saudi government in his testimony to the 9/11 Commission. Freeh has made similar allegations before, in a 2001 article by Elsa Walsh in The New Yorker. And he notably waited until his last day at the FBI, after George W. Bush had become president, to announce an indictment of 13 Saudis and a Lebanese — still fugitives — for their role in the Khobar Towers attack. But his questions remain unanswered: Did any of the Clinton folks intentionally impede the FBI probe? Did anyone suggest to the Saudis, explicitly or otherwise, that America was not interested in information implicating high-ranking Iranians in the bombing? Whatever the answers, there is no denying the terrible fallout from the failure to respond to the Khobar attack: The bombings of USS Cole and two U.S. embassies in east Africa, the attempted assassination of former President Bush and — ultimately — 9/11 all came about because, as Freeh puts it, "we lacked the political will, the spine to take military action against our enemies." The country, he says, "was not on a war footing," even after the first World Trade Center bombing. That sent a message to the terrorists that they could attack America with impunity — which led directly to 9/11. Bill Clinton owes the American people some answers to Freeh's charges. nypost.com