Hmmm. Wonder why the NYT isn’t all over this one? From the WSJ, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, “Khobar Towers: The Clinton administration left many stones unturned”:
[…] The aftermath of the Khobar bombing is just one example of how successive U.S. governments have mishandled Iran. On June 25, 1996, President Clinton declared that “no stone would be left unturned” to find the bombers and bring them to “justice.” Within hours, teams of FBI agents, and forensic and technical personnel, were en route to Khobar. The president told the Saudis and the 19 victims’ families that I was responsible for the case. This assignment became very personal and solemn for me, as it meant that I was the one who dealt directly with the victims’ survivors. These disciplined military families asked only one thing of me and their country: “Please find out who did this to our sons, husbands, brothers and fathers and bring them to justice.”
It soon became clear that Mr. Clinton and his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, had no interest in confronting the fact that Iran had blown up the towers. This is astounding, considering that the Saudi Security Service had arrested six of the bombers after the attack. As FBI agents sifted through the remains of Building 131 in 115-degree heat, the bombers admitted they had been trained by the Iranian external security service (IRGC) in Lebanon’s Beka Valley and received their passports at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, along with $250,000 cash for the operation from IRGC Gen. Ahmad Sharifi.
We later learned that senior members of the Iranian government, including Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the Spiritual Leader’s office had selected Khobar as their target and commissioned the Saudi Hezbollah to carry out the operation. The Saudi police told us that FBI agents had to interview the bombers in custody in order to make our case. To make this happen, however, the U.S. president would need to make a personal request to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
So for 30 months, I wrote and rewrote the same set of simple talking points for the president, Mr. Berger, and others to press the FBI’s request to go inside a Saudi prison and interview the Khobar bombers. And for 30 months nothing happened. The Saudis reported back to us that the president and Mr. Berger would either fail to raise the matter with the crown prince or raise it without making any request. On one such occasion, our commander in chief instead hit up Prince Abdullah for a contribution to his library. Mr. Berger never once, in the course of the five-year investigation which coincided with his tenure, even asked how the investigation was going.
Well, you know Sandy. If it can’t fit in his pants, he wants no part of it.
Which, now that I think about it, that kinda describes Clinton, too.
Wow. KISMET!
(h/t Dan Collins)
It soon became clear that Mr. Clinton and his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, had no interest in confronting the fact that Iran had blown up the towers.
It’s remarkable that the Boy President didn’t slip into one of his tutus and pose in front of a banner proclaiming “Omission Accomplished.”
Cordially…
Oh…PW readers: please don’t detail Clinton’s vastly more numerous “emissions accomplished.”
Cordially…
Damn, there goes my comment…
I don’t buy it. Dick Clarke assured us that Bill Clinton was really, really serious about fighting the terrorist threat. I question the… the… the timing of this article. Yeah, timing, that’s the ticket.
It might be too earlier, but I smell a thread winner…
Ol’ Billy boy is creeping up in the race for “Worst. President. Ever.”, trying to overtake Jimmuh Carter.
Me too. Rats.
Yeah, come to think of it, you’re right. Rick’s comment was seminal.
Methinks U.S. policy on Iran is set to change in a big way. We had General Casey mention Iran in his Pentagon briefing recently, and don’t forget this comment by Rumsfeld:
http://tinyurl.com/zetum
Its been 10 years today since those young men died in the bombing at Khobar towers. The fact that the New York Times has gone from reporting that even to reporting our efforts to prevent events like that in a way that helps our enemies is telling indeed.
Just ten short years.
Yes, after Rick’s comment I feel compelled to abstain as well…
Hey my TW is “white”…. But I still shall not mention any of Billy’s indiscretions.
A seminal decision.
Or, y’know, not.
SB: line
no more, Bill
Wonder why the NYT isn’t all over this one?
It’s simple. The NYT does not want to remind its readers what the world would be like under a Democratic administration and their idea of how to fight terror, which is ignore the problem and hope it goes away.
And if it does not go away, cut & run, er, redeploy!
Clinton realized correctly that to directly accuse Iran of an act of war would put him in the uncomfortable position of having to do something about it or look weak.
Besides the Saudis have lots of dough and he needed money for the Presidential Motel and Massage parlor!
Holy Mohammed (pbuh), Rick, there goes my comment as well.
Have I run the one past you about how Clinton is such a coward, it would make a grieving mother laugh? Stop me if you’ve heard it…
I say we keep quiet about it and let this unjustified rethuglican scare mongering pass in due time.
Sincerely,
Kos
Help me out on this on, were Bill Clinton’s sins of emission greater than his sins of omission?
Turing Word: outside, as in, looking in.
Where have you gone, Lo Ping Wong? A blog thread turns it’s lonely eyes to you…
Shoot! The links aren’t going to the comment permalinks correctly. Abort sarcastic rejoinder! Abort!
You worry about those towers, I’ll worry about the fighters…
The towers never hit anything anyways.
“They’re evading our turbo-lasers…”
<spooky reverb effect>
“Uuuuuse the fooooorce, Luuuuke!”
</spooky reverb effect>
Yah tongueboy, Lo Ping Wong wanted to talk, talk, talk about Billy’s anti-terror accomplishments in the previous thread. Where is he now?
I’d say there is a vas deferens between the NYT ten years ago and the NYT today.
tw: I just couldn’t “leave” it alone.
Equitus – I could see at a glans that you were correct.
You guys should quit while your a head.
Had WJC taken that advice, he could have avoided alot of trouble.
But then again, groping is bad too, isn’t it?
TW: power, as in that’s what the feminists tell me sexual harassment is all about.
Y’all are nuts.
Indeed, Captain Holly—one of the things I actually am grateful to Billy Jeff for, is that ‘e wrecked any credibility the extreme feminists ever had.
[shaking head]
Protein Wisdom commenters, AGAIN, do an entire thread about nothing but COCK.
Exactly how does Pasty fit in with the Cock action? I’m assuming rubber surgical gloves and petroleum jelly, of course, but…
Verc
POPPY COCK!
Wait, that was the previous administration…
Well, when the subject of the Clinton presidency arises…er…comes up…er…is addressed, is there any avoiding it?
“Sadly, No.”
Cordially…
Please!
Say “Mr. Winky” instead of c…um, that other word.
We’re trying to clean up the public act around here, and all that’s going down the memory…uh, hole…
SB: hours
days, weeks to go
President Clinton just dind’t want to run of half-cocked and start a war with Iran.
Oops, sorry, didn’t.
All these COCK references are nothing more than metaphors for cigars, according to Ziggy Freud. You people are revealed as hucksters and lackeys for Big Tobacco!
Turing Word: closed
I always figured Clinton was 90% cat and 10% human.
After all, all he did was sleep 20 hours a day, do nothing but think about sex when he was awake, paw every female he ever encountered and was particularly good at covering up shit.
It used to be the case where I work that we hosted and administered a number of standardized exams, including one very popular one for alternate-route teacher certification. It required a lot of set-up, and there were any number of problems that developed, not least with those who showed up to take the exam, of whom it usually seemed that something like 80% had paid zero attention to the instructions mailed out in advance.
So anyway, on one of these occasions, we’re walking down the hallway to take up our stations before the herd of examinees are admitted, and a colleague, a blue-haired English teacher-type (almost literally so) is complaining about the problems she’s had with her examinees in the past, and how she expects today will be more of the same.
She turns to me, dead serious (this lady does not do humor) and asks, “How about you? Are you having any trouble with your testees?” The poor darling couldn’t understand why everyone else in the hallway was doubled over laughing, and I’m not sure if anyone has clued her in on it to this day.
I don’t know – somehow this seemed the thread to…share… this little tidbit.
Since Lo Ping Wong is pretty much Wong about WJC, can we revise his blogname to be Lo Ping Wang?
Hey, if the NYT DOES cover this story, someone please link me.
I’m prostate before the vastly superior humor in this thread.
TW: evidence. If it was blue dress I’d be impressed.
Hmmm …
“Tai Ni Wang” might fill the bill.
This pre-emptive obstruction of emissions comments raises a rather sticky expression issue, I think…
Can we please return to the meat of the issue?
Just don’t say you’re pulling for us.
TW “coming” – I kid you not.
I have no meat to speak of. I am really old (according to my own standards). What happens next? In dog years, I am way dead.
I don’t really have anything to say, but I am writing this from my best friends I-Mac, and I hope he knows how to find “History” (but I really doubt it).
It is truly thrilling to be posting to PW (THANK YOU, JEFF) from a machine whose owner foams at the mouth when he hears the words “George Bush’. It’s almost as good as when I was in the eighth grade, and talked my neighbor Debby into taking her clothes off, among other things. I know this sounds sexist, but I WAS in the eighth grade and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Is anybody else old enough to see what carries those parts around? Bummer, huh?
Apparently I have nothing of consequence to say.
Oh well. Sometimes it’s good to just show the flag…
Anyway, it gives me great pleasure to post a comment from a machine that is owned by a man (a famous man, at that) who would have an absolute hemorage if he knew I was doing this.
Thanks guys for your patience (or is it patients?). Sometimes I just lose control…..
Oops! One more question. Am I the only one who can’t spell “hemorage”?
Lost Dog,
Guilty pleasures are the best …
Jay –
Oh, yes they are…
Oops! One more question. Am I the only one who can’t spell “hemorage�
No.
Humor aside, am I wrong in considering this evidence that a sitting president was complicit in sheltering individuals and a nation who had committed an act of war against American servicemen and women?
And is there any reason to doubt that Hillary was in the loop on this?
It’s because he’s black, innit? Racists!
Gee, it hardly seems fair that Loping Wrong isn’t around to defend the priaPrez’s noble positions in the oval office galley.
So let’s just go ahead and acknowledge whose administration set the most useless emissions standards in history.
Yep, the smell of Bill’s legacy lingers on.
Oh, and you guys are twisted funny, even off topic.
tw: dark, as in: Dark humor is best.
P.S. Not accepting racist tags at the moment. Please try again later.
Someone should erect a memorial to Bill. It shouldn’t be hard to do.
To do it, to do it, dammit. Argh.
Try thinking of baseball.
Clinton’s motivation for failing to press the Saudis for evidence that Iran had bombed the Khobar Towers being, of course, a desire not to embarrass the Saudis due to his family’s long personal connections to the Saudi ruling family and the close imbrication of his party with campaign contributors from the oil industry.
Oh. Wait. Wrong president.
So…the motive must’ve been…
He likes terrorists? Yeah, I guess that must be it. And the Saudis’ motives for concealing Iranian government involvement in a terrorist attack on their country being…um…okay, I’ve run out of ideas here.
Either that, or Louis Freeh, who torpedoed the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole by sending a bunch of obnoxious FBI numskulls to Yemen who had no better idea of how to work with local law enforcement in Aden than they did of how to do it in Alabama, and whose agency decided not to push for a search warrant in August 2001 that might have uncovered clear evidence of the September 11 plot, is trying to cover his ass and recoup his shhattered reputation by saying it was all Bill Clinton’s fault.
Well, he’s picked his audience well.
Jeez, Brooksfoe! You got me excited for a minute. I read your first few sentences and thought wow, he’s really being honest this time.
Alas. I do note you managed to disparage how Americans got along with the locals again, you cultural chameleon you!
Yeah, it’s shocking that the NY Times won’t be covering these new revelations from Freeh – especially when The New Yorker already covered them in an extensive article in May 2001.
From Perrspectives, on Freeh’s October 2005 tell-all book with the five-year-old Iran “revelations”:
“Even in advance of the arrival of My FBI, much of Freeh’s tale can be gleaned from a fawning May 2001 piece in the New Yorker. “Louis Freeh’s Last Case”, written by Elsa Walsh prior to the September 11 attacks, portrays a heroic Freeh fighting both Saudi intransigence and a feckless Clinton administration to get to the bottom of the 1996 Khobar Towers attack that killed 19 Americans. In the Walsh piece, a determined Freeh seeks to punish the Iranian perpetrators of Khobar, while President Clinton, afraid of war with Tehran, shrinks from confronting the Saudi regime holding all the suspects – and all the cards. But as we’ll see shortly, Freeh’s revisionist history is just that.”
Thank God we have upstanding conservative magazines like the New Yorker around when the liberal MSM is afraid to speak the truth. Or echo the self-serving talking points of a former bureaucrat trying to even a ten-year-old grudge.
Oh, it was the FBI’s fault. Got it.
Did Freeh torpedo Clinton when he was within veritable inches of pulling OBL from the Sudan? Odd, so many missed opportunities, so much utter BS from his cock-holsters…’scuse me, mouth pieces, around the country.
So brooksfoe- what did Clinton do about the Khobar towers?
Oh, so it is the opposite way; law enforcement officials are feckless and politicians are the heros.
Thanks, brooksfoe, I take back everything I ever said about your intelligence, goodlooks, general hygiene, charm, and your mother. Clearly I did not go far enough before about what an utterly stupid horse’s ass whose clumsy diction is only matched by the giant indention in your head where your mother dropped you; no time for pre-natal when you have to service Uncle Chester faster than a NASCAR pit-crew.
BTW, how many times did Clinton–ever the law enforcement zealot–meet with his FBI chief in private?
THis won’t take very long…
Verc-why are you blaming Clinton? It’s not like he had real power like an FBI Director or anything. I mean if he held the office in our system of government that has the authority for conducting foreign policy or was commander in chief of the armed forces or something, well then he might have been able to do something about the murder of 19 servicemembers in Saudi Arabia in 1996.
But as it was, he just couldn’t stand up to bad old Louis Freeh (the big bully).
TW-truth to power man. That’s what the lefties are all about.
Man, the fuggin reThugs have totally taken control of teh intranets. Every where I look now it says that Clinton appointed Freeh, and that Freeh worked for him. This is outrageous!
BTW, how many times did Clinton–ever the law enforcement zealot–meet with his FBI chief in private?
THis won’t take very long…
Is Freeh chubby or young or recently widowed or fluent in trailerese? There’s your answer.
Ah, pipes up the devil’s advocate, Freeh was a subordinate; doesn’t that qualify him for some private presidential ministrations? Sadly no, as Freeh does not meet the minimum gender qualifications. No one-on-one time with the Presidential White Owl for you, Mr. Freeh.
So… the point that the New York Times won’t cover this story is refuted by saying the New Yorker did? Huh?
Hey, CT—they both have the words “new” and “york” in their names, so they must be affiliated, right? And if they’re affiliated they must be the same, right?
[shrug]
I dunno. I read that too and thought, “Well, that’s no more brainless than anything else these trolls ever have to say.”
“So… the point that the New York Times won’t cover this story is refuted by saying the New Yorker did? Huh?” – Chris Taylor
Let me explain this for those who are either stupid, or are pretending to be stupid in order to attempt a sophomoric objection. Goldstein doesn’t say “the New York Times” because he’s concerned, specifically, that the NYT won’t cover it. He’s using the NYT to stand for the allegedly liberal mainstream press in general. But Freeh’s allegations were in fact covered long ago in a mainstream press organ which can with much greater accuracy be accused of having a “liberal” slant, namely the New Yorker. Most importantly, since the allegations were covered FIVE YEARS AGO, it’s really hard to fault the NYT for not treating this as news. When some disgruntled bureaucrat has been peddling a story for five years, and then he makes an appearance and peddles the same story again, do you expect major news coverage of it? Apparently, if the bureaucrat is trying to insult President Clinton, you do. Because, no matter how idiotic and implausible the message or how unreliable and self-interested the messenger, you guys can just never get enough excuses to make sex jokes about President Clinton.
And, of course, any threadbare excuse to blame Clinton for failing to pursue Muslim terrorism with adequate vigor helps take the spotlight off the issue of President Bush’s hapless incompetence at pursuing Muslim terrorists, and his extraordinary bumbling success at creating and encouraging thousands of new ones, both in Iraq and around the world.
depends, is it Al Gore? cause that environment crap never gets old.
And to sum up, Brooksfoe can’t touch the substance of what Freeh says so he tries to slime him as disgruntled. I don’t suppose that the 10th anniversary of the event mattered at all in the timing of Freeh’s editorial.
TW: fire, as in Clinton fired a couple of missiles at a tent in Afghanistan, which is proof of his boundless determination.
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